THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF 
FIDELITY 

A  Comedy  in  Letters 

BY 

JAMES   LANE  ALLEN 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  KENTUCKY  CARDINAL," 
"THE  KENTUCKY  WARBLER,"  ETC. 


There  is  nothing  so  ill-bred  as  audible 
laughter.  ...  I  am  sure  that  since  I  have 
had  the  full  use  of  my  reason  nobody  has 
ever  heard  me  laugh. 

— Lord  Chesterfield's  Letters  to  his  Son. 


GARDEN  CITY        NEW  YORK 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


LIST  OF  CHARACTERS 

EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE Famous  elderly  English  novelist 

BEVERLEY  SANDS Rising  young  American  novelist 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE.  . .  .Practical  lawyer,  friend  of  Beverley  Sands 
GEORGE  MARIGOLD Fashionable  physician 

CLAUDE  MULLEN Fashionable  nerve-specialist,  friend  of 

George  Marigold 

RUFUS  KENT Long-winded  president  of  a  club 

NOAH  CHAMBERLAIN Very  learned,  very  absent-minded  professor 

PHILLIPS  AND  FAULDS Florists 

BURNS  AND  BRUCE Florists 

JUDD    AND   JUDD Florists 

ANDY  PETERS Florist 

HODGE Stupid  gardener  of  Edward  Blackthorne 

TILLY  SNOWDEN Dangerous  sweetheart  of  Beverley  Sands 

POLLY  BOLES Dangerous  sweetheart  of  Benjamin  Doolittle, 

friend  of  Tilly  Snowden 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN.  .  ..Very  devoted,  very  proud  sensitive 

daughter  of  Noah  Chamberlain 

ANNE  RAEBURN '. .  .Protective  secretary  of  Edward  Blackthorne' 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 


EDWARD    BLACKTHORNE    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England, 
May  J,  ipio. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS: 

I  have  just  read  to  the  end  of  your  latest 
novel  and  under  the  outdoor  influence  of  that 
Kentucky  story  have  sat  here  at  my  windows 
with  my  eyes  on  the  English  landscape  of  the 
first  of  May:  on  as  much  of  the  landscape,  at 
least,  as  lies  within  the  grey,  ivy-tumbled, 
rose-besprinkled  wall  of  a  companionable  old 
Warwickshire  garden. 

You  may  or  you  may  not  know  that  I,  too, 
am  a  novelist.  The  fact,  however  negligible 
otherwise,  may  help  to  disarm  you  of  some 
very  natural  hostility  at  the  approach  of  this 
letter  from  a  stranger;  for  you  probably  agree 
with  me  that  the  writing  of  novels — not,  of 
course,  the  mere  odious  manufacture  of  novels 
— results  in  the  making  of  friendly,  brotherly 

men  across  the  barriers  of  nations,  and  that 

i 


£,  4....THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

we* -may :  often*  do  as  fellow-craftsmen  what  we 
could  do  less  well  or  not  do  at  all  as  fellow- 
creatures. 

I  shall  not  loiter  at  the  threshold  of  this 
letter  to  fatigue  your  ear  with  particulars  re 
garding  the  several  parts  of  your  story  most 
enjoyed,  though  I  do  pause  there  long  enough 
to  say  that  no  admirable  human  being  has 
ever  yet  succeeded  in  wearying  my  own  ears 
by  any  such  desirable  procedure.  In  Eng 
land,  and  I  presume  in  the  United  States, 
novelists  have  long  noses  for  incense  [poets, 
too,  though  of  course  only  in  their  inferior 
way].  I  repeat  that  we  English  novelists  are 
a  species  of  greyhound  for  running  down  on 
the  most  distant  horizon  any  scampering, 
half-terrified  rabbit  of  a  compliment.  But  I 
freely  confess  that  nature  loaded  me  beyond 
the  tendency  of  being  a  mere  greyhound.  I 
am  a  veritable  elephant  in  the  matter,  being 
marvelously  equipped  with  a  huge,  flexible 
proboscis  which  is  not  only  adapted  to  admit 
praise  but  is  quite  capable  of  actively  reach 
ing  around  in  every  direction  to  procure  it. 
Even  the  greyhound  cannot  run  forever;  but 
an  elephant,  if  he  once  possess  it,  will  wave 
such  a  proboscis  till  he  dies. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY          3 

There  are  likely  to  be  in  any  very  readable 
book  a  few  pages  which  the  reader  feels 
tempted  to  tear  out  for  the  contrary  reason, 
perhaps,  that  he  cannot  tear  them  out  of  his 
tenderness.  Some  haunting  picture  of  the 
book-gallery  that  he  would  cut  from  the  frame. 
Should  you  be  displeased  by  the  discrimina 
tion,  I  shall  trust  that  you  may  be  pleased 
nevertheless  by  the  avowal  that  there  is  a 
scene  in  your  novel  which  has  peculiarly  en 
snared  my  affections. 

At  this  point  I  think  I  can  see  you  throw 
down  my  letter  with  more  insight  into  human 
nature  than  patience  with  its  foibles.  You 
toss  it  aside  and  exclaim:  "What  does  this 
Englishman  drive  at?  Why  does  he  not  at 
once  say  what  he  \vants?"  You  are  right. 
My  letter  is  perhaps  no  better  than  strangers' 
letters  commonly  are:  coins,  one  side  of  which 
is  stamped  with  your  image  and  the  other 
side  with  their  image,  especially  theirs. 

I  might  as  well,  therefore,  present  to  you 
my  side  of  the  coin  with  the  selfish  image. 
Or,  in  terms  of  your  blue-grass  country  life, 
you  are  the  horse  in  an  open  pasture  and  I 
am  the  stableman  who  schemes  to  catch  you: 
to  do  this,  I  approach,  calling  to  you  afFec- 


4         THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

tionately  and  shaking  a  bundle  of  oats  behind 
which  is  coiled  a  halter.  You  are  thinking 
that  if  I  once  clutch  you  by  the  mane  you 
will  get  no  oats.  But,  my  dear  sir,  you  have 
from  the  very  first  word  of  this  letter  already 
been  nibbling  the  oats.  And  now  you  are  my 
animal ! 

There  is,  then,  in  your  novel  a  remarkable 
description  of  a  noonday  woodland  scene 
somewhere  on  your  enchanted  Kentucky  up 
lands — a  cool,  moist  forest  spot.  Into  this 
scene  you  introduced  some  rare,  beautiful 
Kentucky  ferns.  I  can  see  the  ferns!  I  can 
see  the  sunlight  striking  through  the  waving 
treetops  down  upon  them!  Now,  as  it  hap 
pens,  in  the  old  garden  under  my  windows, 
loving  the  shade  and  moisture  of  its  trees 
and  its  wall,  I  have  a  bank  of  ferns.  They  are 
a  marvelous  company,  in  their  way  as  good 
as  Wordsworth's  flock  of  daffodils;  for  they 
have  been  collected  out  of  England's  best 
and  from  other  countries. 

Here,  then,  is  literally  the  root  of  this  letter: 
Will  you  send  me  the  root-stocks  of  some  of 
those  Kentucky  ferns  to  grow  and  wave  on 
my  Warwickshire  fern  bank? 

Do  not  suppose  that  my  garden  is  on  a 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY          5 

small  scale  a  public  park  or  exhibition,  made 
as  we  have  created  Kensington  Gardens. 
Everything  in  it  Js,  on  the  contrary,  enriched 
with  some  personal  association.  I  began  it 
when  a  young  man  in  the  following  way: 

At  that  period  I  was  much  under  the  in 
fluence  of  the  Barbizon  painters,  and  I  some 
times  entertained  myself  in  the  forests  where 
masters  of  that  school  had  worked  by  hunt 
ing  up  what  I  supposed  were  the  scenes  of 
some  of  Corot's  masterpieces. 

Corot,  if  my  eyes  tell  me  the  truth,  painted 
trees  as  though  he  were  looking  at  enormous 
ferns.  His  ferns  spring  out  of  the  soil  and 
some  rise  higher  than  others  as  trees;  his  trees 
descend  through  the  air  and  are  lost  lower 
down  as  ferns.  One  day  I  dug  up  some  Corot 
ferns  for  my  good  Warwickshire  loam.  An 
other  winter  Christine  Nilsson  was  singing  at 
Covent  Garden.  I  spent  several  evenings 
with  her.  When  I  bade  her  good-bye,  I  asked 
her  to  send  me  some  ferns  from  Norway  in 
memory  of  Balzac  and  Seraphita.  Yet  an 
other  winter,  being  still  a  young  man  and  he, 
alas!  a  much  older  one,  I  passed  an  evening 
in  Paris  with  Turgenieff.  I  would  persist  in 
talking  about  his  novels  and  I  remember 


6         THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

quoting  these  lines  from  one  of  them:  "It 
was  a  splendid  clear  morning;  tiny  mottled 
cloudlets  hung  like  snipe  in  the  clear  pale 
azure;  a  fine  dew  was  sprinkled  on  the  leaves 
and  grass  and  glistened  like  silver  on  the 
spiders'  webs;  the  moist  dark  earth  seemed 
.  still  to  retain  the  rosy  traces  of  the  dawn ;  the 
songs  of  larks  showered  down  from  all  over 
the  sky." 

He  sat  looking  at  me  in  surprised,  touched 
silence. 

"But  you  left  out  something!"  I  suggested, 
with  the  bumptiousness  of  a  beginner  in 
letters.  He  laughed  slightly  to  himself — and 
perhaps  more  at  me — as  he  replied:  "I  must 
have  left  out  a  great  deal" — he,  fiction's 
greatest  master  of  compression.  After  a  mo 
ment  he  inquired  with  a  kind  of  vast  patient 
condescension:  "What  is  it  that  you  defi 
nitely  missed?"  "Ferns,"  I  replied.  "Ferns 
were  growing  thereabouts."  He  smiled  remi- 
niscently.  "  So  there  were,"  he  replied,  smiling 
reminiscently.  "If  I  knew  where  the  spot 
was,"  I  said,  "I  should  travel  to  it  for  some 
ferns."  A  mystical  look  came  into  his  eyes  as 
he  muttered  rather  to  himself  than  for  my 
ear:  "That  spot!  Where  is  that  spot?  That 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY          7 

spot  is  all  Russia!"  In  his  exile,  the  whole  of 
Russia  was  to  him  one  scene,  one  fatherland, 
one  pain,  one  passion.  Sometime  afterwards 
there  reached  me  at  home  a  hamper  of  Russian 
fern-roots  with  TurgeniefFs  card. 

I  tell  you  all  this  as  1  make  the  request, 
which  is  the  body  of  this  letter  and,  I  hope, 
its  wings,  in  order  that  you  may  intimately 
understand.  I  desire  the  ferns  not  only  be 
cause  you  have  interested  me  in  your  Ken 
tucky  by  making  it  a  living,  lovely  reality, 
but  because  I  have  become  interested  in  your 
art  and  in  you.  While  I  read  your  book  I  be 
lieved  that  I  saw  the  hand  of  youth  joyously 
at  work,  creating  where  no  hand  had  created 
before;  or  if  on  its  chosen  scene  it  found  a 
ruin,  then  joyously  trying  to  re-create  reality 
from  that  ruin.  But  to  create  where  no  hand 
has  created  before,  or  to  create  them  again 
where  human  things  lie  in  decay — that  to  me 
is  the  true  energy  of  literature. 

I  should  not  omit  to  tell  you  that  some  of 
our  most  tight  -  islanded,  hard  -  headed  re 
viewers  have  been  praising  your  work  as  of 
the  best  that  reaches  us  from  America.  It 
was  one  such  reviewer  that  first  guided  me  to 
your  latest  book.  Now  I  myself  have  written 


8         THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

to  some  of  our  critics  and  have  thrown  my 
influence  in  favour  of  your  fresh,  beautiful  art, 
which  can  only  come  from  a  fresh,  beautiful 
nature. 

Should  you  decide  to  bestow  any  notice 
upon  this  rather  amazing  letter,  you  will  bear 
in  mind  of  course  that  chere  will  be  pounds 
sterling  for  plants.  Whatever  character  my 
deed  or  misdeed  may  later  assume,  it  must 
first  and  at  least  have  the  nature  of  a  trans 
action  of  the  market-place. 

So,  turn  out  as  it  may,  or  not  turn  out  at  all, 

I  am, 

Gratefully  yours, 

EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE. 


BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO   EDWARD   BLACKTHORNE 

Cathedral  Heights,  New  York, 
May  12,  IQIO. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BLACKTHORNE: 

Your  letter  is  as  unreal  to  me  as  if  I  had, 
in  some  modern  ^Esop's  Fables,  read  how  a 
whale,  at  ease  in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  had 
taken  the  trouble  to  turn  entirely  round  to 
encourage  a  puffing  young  porpoise;  or  of 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY          9 

how  a  black  oak,  majestic  dome  of  a  forest, 
had  on  some  fine  spring  day  looked  down  and 
complimented  a  small  dogwood  tree  upon  its 
size  and  the  purity  of  its  blossoms.  And  yet, 
while  thus  unreal,  your  letter  is  in  its  way  the 
most  encouragingly  real  thing  that  has  ever 
come  into  my  life.  Before  I  go  further  I 
should  like  to  say  that  I  have  read  every  book 
you  have  written  and  have  bought  your  books 
and  given  them  away  with  such  zeal  and  zest 
that  your  American  publishers  should  feel 
more  interest  in  me  than  can  possibly  be  felt 
by  the  gentlemen  who  publish  mine. 

It  is  too  late  to  tell  you  this  now.  Too  late, 
in  bad  taste.  A  man's  praise  of  another  may 
not  follow  upon  that  man's  praise  of  him. 
Our  virtues  have  their  hour.  If  they  do  not 
act  then,  they  are  not  like  clocks  which  may 
be  set  forward  but  resemble  fruits  which  lose 
their  flavour  when  they  pass  into  ripeness. 
Still,  what  I  have  said  is  honest.  You  may 
remember  that  I  am  yet  moving  amid  life's 
uncertainties  as  a  beginner,  while  you  walk 
in  quietness  the  world's  highway  of  a  great 
career.  My  praise  could  have  borne  little  to 
you;  yours  brings  everything  to  me.  And 
you  must  reflect  also  that  it  is  just  a  little 


io       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

easier  for  any  Englishman  to  write  to  an 
American  in  this  way.  The  American  could 
but  fear  that  his  letter  might  seriously  disturb 
the  repose  of  a  gentleman  who  was  reclining 
with  his  head  in  Shakespeare's  bosom;  and 
Shakespeare's  entire  bosom  in  this  regard,  as 
you  know,  Mr.  Blackthorne,  does  stay  in 
England. 

It  will  give  me  genuine  pleasure  to  arrange 
for  the  shipment  of  the  ferns.  A  good  many- 
years  have  passed  since  I  lived  in  Kentucky 
and  I  am  no  longer  in  close  touch  with  people 
and  things  down  there.  But  without  doubt 
the  matter  can  be  managed  through  cor 
respondence  and  all  that  I  await  from  you 
now  is  express  instructions.  The  ferns  de 
scribed  in  my  book  are  not  known  to  me  by 
name.  I  have  procured  and  have  mailed  to 
you  along  with  this,  lest  you  may  not  have 
any,  some  illustrated  catalogues  of  American 
ferns,  Kentucky  ferns  included.  You  have 
but  to  send  me  a  list  of  those  you  want.  With 
that  in  hand  I  shall  know  exactly  how  to 
proceed. 

You  cannot  possibly  understand  how  happy 
I  am  that  my  work  has  the  approval  of  the 
English  reviews,  which  still  remain  the  best 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        n 

in  the  world.  To  know  that  my  Kentucky 
stones  are  liked  in  England — England  which, 
remaining  true  to  so  many  great  traditions, 
holds  fast  to  the  classic  tradition  in  her 
literature. 

The  putting  forth  of  your  own  personal  in 
fluence  in  my  behalf  is  a  source  of  joy  and 
pride;  and  your  wish  to  have  Kentucky  ferns 
growing  in  your  garden  in  token  of  me  is  the 
most  inspiring  event  yet  to  mark  my  life. 

I  am, 

Sincerely  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


EDWARD    BLACKTHORNE  TO    BEVERLEY   SANDS 

King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England, 
May  22,  1910. 

MY  DEAR  SANDS: 

Your  letter  was  brought  out  to  me  as  I  was 
hanging  an  old  gate  in  a  clover-field  canopied 
with  skylarks.  When  I  cannot  make  headway 
against  some  obstruction  in  the  development 
of  a  story,  for  instance,  putting  the  hinges  of 
the  narrative  where  the  reader  will  not  see 


12       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

any  hinges,  I  let  the  book  alone  and  go  out 
and  do  some  piece  of  work,  surrounded  by 
the  creatures  which  succeed  in  all  they  under 
take  through  zest  and  joy.  By  the  time  I  get 
back,  the  hinges  of  the  book  have  usually 
hung  themselves  without  my  knowing  when 
or  how.  Hence  the  paradox:  we  achieve  the 
impossible  by  doing  the  possible;  we  climb 
our  mountain  of  troubles  by  walking  away 
from  it. 

It  is  splendid  news  that  I  am  to  get  the 
Kentucky  ferns.  Thank  you  for  the  cata 
logues.  A  list  of  those  I  most  covet  is  en 
closed.  The  cost,  shipping  expenses  included, 
will  not,  I  fear,  exceed  five  pounds.  Of  course 
it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  pay  fifty  guineas,  but 
I  suppose  I  must  restrict  myself  to  the  despic 
able  market  price.  Shamefully  cheap  many 
of  the  dearest  things  in  this  world  are;  and 
what  exorbitant  prices  we  pay  for  the  worth 
less! 

A  draft  will  be  forwarded  in  advance  upon 
receipt  of  the  American  shipper's  address. 
Or  I  could  send  it  forthwith  to  you.  Mean 
time  from  now  on  I  shall  be  remembering 
with  impatience  how  many  miles  it  is  across 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  at  what  a  snail's  pace 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        13 

American  ferns  travel.  These  will  be  awaited 
like  guests  whom  one  goes  to  the  gate  to  meet. 

You  do  not  know  the  names  of  those  you 
describe  so  wonderfully!  I  am  glad.  I  abhor 
the  names  of  my  own.  Of  course,  as  they  are 
bought,  memoranda  must  be  depended  upon 
by  which  to  buy  them.  These  data,  verified 
by  catalogue,  are  inked  on  little  wooden  slabs 
as  fern  headstones.  When  each  fern  is  planted, 
into  the  soil  beside  it  is  stuck  its  headstone, 
which,  like  that  for  a  human  being,  tells  the 
name,  not  the  nature,  of  what  it  memorialises. 

Hodge  is  the  fellow  who  knows  the  ferns 
according  to  the  slabs.  It  is  time  you  should 
know  Hodge  by  his  slab.  No  such  being  can 
yet  be  found  in  the  United  States:  your  civi 
lisation  is  too  young.  Hodge  is  my  British- 
Empire  gardener;  and  as  he  now  looks  out 
for  every  birthday  much  as  for  any  total 
solar  eclipse  of  the  year — with  a  kind  of  grow 
ing  solicitude  lest  the  sun  or  the  birthday 
should  finally,  as  it  passes,  bowl  him  over  for 
good — he  announced  to  me  with  visible  relief 
the  other  day  that  he  had  successfully  passed 
another  total  natal  eclipse;  that  he  was 
fifty-eight.  But  Hodge  is  not  fifty-eight  years 
old.  The  battle  of  Hastings  was  fought  in 


14       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

1066  and  Hodge  without  knowing  it  was  be 
ginning  to  be  a  well-grown  lout  then.  For 
Hodge  is  English  landscape  gardening  in 
human  shape.  He  is  the  benevolent  spirit  of 
the  English  turf,  a  malign  spirit  to  English 
weeds.  He  is  wall  ivy,  a  root,  a  bulb,  a  rake, 
a  wheelbarrow  of  spring  manure,  a  pile  of 
autumn  leaves,  a  crocus.  In  a  distant  future 
mythology  of  our  English  rural  life  he  will 
perhaps  rank  where  he  belongs — as  a  lumi 
nary  next  in  importance  to  the  sun:  a  two- 
legged  god  be-earthed  in  old  clothes,  with  a 
stiff  back,  a  stiff  temper,  the  jaw  of  the  mas 
tiff  and  the  eye  of  a  prophet. 

It  is  Hodge  who  does  the  slabs.  He  would 
not  allow  anything  to  come  into  the  garden 
without  mastering  that  thing.  For  the  sake 
of  his  own  authority  he  must  subdue  as  much 
of  the  Latin  language  as  invades  his  territory 
along  with  the  ferns.  But  I  think  nothing 
comparable  to  such  a  struggle  against  over 
whelming  odds — Hodge's  brain  pitted  against 
the  Latin  names  of  the  ferns — nothing  com 
parable  to  the  dull  fury  of  that  onset  is  to  be 
found  in  the  history  of  man  unless  it  be  Eng 
land's  war  on  Napoleon  for  twenty  years. 
England  did  conquer  Napoleon  and  finally 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY         15 

shut  him  up  in  a  desolate,  rocky  place;  and 
Hodge  has  finally  conquered  the  names  of 
the  ferns  and  shut  them  up  in  a  desolate, 
rocky  place — his  skull,  his  personal  prom 
ontory. 

Nowadays  you  should  see  him  meet  me  in 
a  garden  path  when  I  come  down  early  some 
morning.  You  should  see  him  plant  himself 
before  me  and,  taking  off  his  cap  and  scratch 
ing  the  back  of  his  neck  with  the  back  of  his 
muddy  thumb,  make  this  announcement: 
"The  Asplenium  filix-fcemina  put  up  two  new 
shoots  last  night,  sir.  Bishop's  crooks,  I  be 
lieve  you  calls  'em,  sir."  As  though  I  were  a 
farmer  and  my  shepherd  should  notify  me 
that  one  of  the  ewes  had  dropped  twin  lambs 
at  three  A.  M.  Hodge's  tone  implies  more  yet: 
the  honour  of  the  shoots — a  questionable 
honour — goes  to  Hodge  as  their  botanical  sire! 

When  I  receive  visitors  by  reason  of  my 
books — and  strangers  do  sometimes  make 
pilgrimages  to  me  on  account  of  my  grove  of 
"Black  Oaks" — if  the  day  is  pleasant,  we 
have  tea  in  the  garden.  While  the  strangers 
drink  tea,  I  begin  to  wave  the  well-known 
proboscis  over  the  company  for  any  praise 
they  may  have  brought  along.  Should  this 


16       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

seem  adequate,  I  later  reward  them  with  a 
stroll.  That  is  Hodge's  hour  and  opportunity. 
Unexpectedly,  as  it  would  appear,  but  in 
variably,  he  steps  out  from  some  bush  and 
takes  his  place  behind  me  as  we  move. 

When  we  reach  the  fern  bank,  the  visitors 
regularly  begin  to  inquire:  "What  is  the 
name  of  this  fern?"  I  turn  helplessly  to 
Hodge  much  as  a  drum-major,  if  asked  by  a 
by-stander  what  the  music  was  that  the  band 
had  just  been  playing,  might  wheel  in  dismay 
to  the  nearest  horn.  Hodge  steps  forward: 
now  comes  the  reward  of  all  his  toil.  "That 
is  the  Polydactulum  cruciato-cristatum,  sir." 
"And  what  is  this  one?"  "That  is  the  Poly- 
podium  elegantissimum,  mum."  Then  you 
would  understand  what  it  sometimes  means 
to  attain  scholarship  without  Oxford  or  Cam 
bridge;  what  upon  occasion  it  is  to  be  a  Roman 
orator  and  a  garden  ass. 

You  will  be  wondering  why  I  am  telling 
you  this  about  Hodge.  For  the  very  particu 
lar  reason  that  Hodge  will  play  a  part,  I  know 
not  what  part,  in  the  pleasant  business  that 
has  come  up  between  us.  He  looms  as  the 
danger  between  me  and  the  American  ferns 
after  the  ferns  shall  have  arrived  here.  It  is 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        17 

a  fact  that  very  few  foreign  ferns  have  ever 
done  well  in  my  garden,  watch  over  them  as 
closely  as  I  may:  especially  those  planted  in 
more  recent  years.  Could  you  believe  it  pos 
sible  of  human  nature  to  refuse  to  water  a 
fern,  to  deny  a  little  earth  to  the  root  of  a 
fern?  Actually  to  scrape  the  soil  away  from 
it  when  there  was  nobody  near  to  observe  the 
deed,  to  jab  at  it  with  a  sharp  trowel?  I  shall 
not  press  the  matter  further,  for  I  instinctively 
turn  away  from  it.  Perhaps  each  of  us  has 
within  himself  some  incomprehensible  little 
terrible  spot  and  I  feel  that  this  is  Hodge's 
spot.  It  is  murder;  Hodge  is  an  assassin:  he 
will  kill  what  he  hates,  if  he  dares.  I  have 
been  so  aroused  to  defend  his  faithful  char 
acter  that  I  have  devised  two  pleadings: 
first,  Hodge  is  the  essence  of  British  parlia 
ments,  the  sum  total  of  British  institutions; 
therefore  he  patriotically  believes  that  things 
British  should  be  good  enough  for  the  British 
— of  course,  their  own  ferns.  At  other  times 
I  am  rather  inclined  to  surmise  that  his 
malice  and  murderous  resentment  are  due  to 
his  inability  to  take  on  any  more  Latin,  least 
of  all  imported  Latin.  Hodge  without  doubt 
now  defends  himself  against  any  more  Latin 


1 8       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

as  a  man  with  his  back  to  the  wall  fights  for 
his  life:  the  personal  promontory  will  hold  no 
more. 

You  have  written  me  an  irresistible  letter, 
though  frankly  I  made  no  effort  to  resist  it. 
Your  praise  of  my  books  instantly  endeared 
you  to  me. 

Since  a  first  plunge  into  ferns,  then,  has 
already  brought  results  so  agreeable  and  sur 
prising,  I  am  resolved  to  be  bolder  and  to 
plunge  a  second  time  and  more  deeply. 

Is  there — how  could  there  help  being! — a 
Mrs.  Beverley  Sands?  'Mrs.  Blackthorne 
wishes  to  know.  I  read  your  letter  to  Mrs. 
Blackthorne.  Mrs.  Blackthorne  was  charmed 
with  it.  Mrs.  Blackthorne  is  charmed  with 
you.  Mr.  Blackthorne  is  charmed  with  you. 
And  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Blackthorne  would  like  to 
know  whether  there  is  a  Mrs.  Beverley  Sands 
and,  if  so,  whether  she  and  you  will  not  some 
time  follow  the  ferns  and  come  and  take 
possession  for  a  while  of  our  English  garden. 

You  and  I  can  go  off  to  ourselves  and  dis 
cuss  our  "dogwoods"  and  "black  oaks"; 
and  Mrs.  Sands  and  Mrs.  Blackthorne,  at 
their  tea  across  the  garden,  can  exchange 
copies  of  their  highly  illuminated  and  pri- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        19 

vately  circulated  little  masterpieces  about 
their  husbands.  (The  husbands  should  always 
edit  the  masterpieces!) 

Both  of  you,  will  you  come  ? 

Finally,  as  to  your  generous  propaganda 
in  behalf  of  my  books  and  as  to  the  favourable 
reports  which  my  publishers  send  me  from 
time  to  time  in  the  guise  of  New  World 
royalties,  you  may  think  of  the  proboscis  as 
now  being  leveled  straight  and  rigid  like  a 
gun-barrel  toward  the  shores  of  the  United 
States,  whence  blow  gales  scented  with  so 
glorious  a  fragrance.  I  begin  to  feel  that 
Columbus  was  not  mistaken:  America  is 
turning  out  to  be  a  place  worth  while. 
Your  deeply  interested, 

EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO   TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  j. 
DEAR  TILLY: 

Crown  me  with  some  kind  of  chaplet — 
nothing  classic,  nothing  sentimental,  but  some 
thing  American  and  practical — say  with  twigs 
of  Kentucky  sassafras  or,  better,  with  the 


20       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

leaves  of  that  forest  favourite  which  in  boy 
hood  so  fascinated  me  and  lubricated  me  with 
its  inner  bark — entwine  me,  O  Tilly,  with  a 
garland  of  slippery  elm  for  the  virtue  of 
always  making  haste  to  share  with  you  my 
slippery  pleasures!  I  write  at  full  speed  now 
to  empty  into  your  lap,  a  wonderfully  recep 
tive  lap,  tidings  of  the  fittest  joy  that  has 
ever  come  to  me  as  your  favourite  author — 
and  favourite  young  husband  to  be. 

The  great  English  novelist  Blackthorne, 
many  of  whose  books  we  have  read  together 
(whenever  you  listened),  recently  stumbled 
over  one  of  my  obstructive  tales;  one  of  my 
awkwardly  placed  literary  hurdles  on  the 
world's  race-course  of  readers.  As  a  result  of 
his  fall  he  got  up,  dusted  himself  thoroughly 
of  his  surprise,  and  actually  despatched  to  me 
an  acknowledgment  of  his  thanks  for  the 
happy  accident.  I  replied  with  a  volley  of 
my  own  thanks,  with  salvos  of  praise  for  him. 
Now  he  has  written  again,  throwing  wide 
open  his  house  and  his  heart,  both  of  which 
appear  to  be  large  and  admirably  suited  to 
entertain  suitable  guests. 

At  this  crisis  place  your  careful  hands  over 
your  careful  heart — can  you  find  where  it  is? 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        21 

— and  draw  ua  deep,  quivering  breath,"  the 
novelist's  conventional  breath  for  the  excited 
heroine.  Mr.  Blackthorne  wishes  to  know 
whether  there  is  a  Mrs.  Beverley  Sands.  If 
there  is,  and  he  feels  sure  there  must  be,  far- 
sighted  man! — he  invites  her,  invites  us,  Mrs. 
Blackthorne  invites  us,  should  we  sometime 
be  in  England,  to  visit  them  at  their  beautiful, 
far-famed  country-house  in  Warwickshire. 
If,  then,  our  often  postponed  marriage,  our 
despairingly  postponed  marriage,  should  be 
arranged  to  madden  me  and  gladden  the  rest 
of  mankind  before  next  summer,  we  could, 
with  our  arms  around  one  another's  necks,  be 
conveyed  by  steam  and  electricity  on  our 
wedding  journey  to  the  Blackthorne  entrance 
and  be  there  deposited,  still  oblivious  of  every 
thing  but  ourselves. 

Think  what  it  would  mean  to  you  to  be 
launched  upon  the  rosy  sea  of  English  social 
life  amid  the  orisons  and  benisons  of  such 
illustrious  literary  personages.  Think  of  those 
lovely  English  lawns,  raked  and  rolled  for 
centuries,  and  of  many-coloured/?/^  on  them; 
of  the  national  tea  and  the  national  sand 
wiches;  of  national  strawberries  and  clotted 
cream  and  clotted  crumpets;  of  Thackeray's 


22       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

flunkies  still  flunkying  and  Queen  Anne's 
fads  yet  f adding;  of  week-ends  without  end — 
as  Mrs.  Beverley  Sands.  Behold  yourself 
growing  more  and  more  a  celebrity,  as  the 
English  mutton-chop  or  sirloined  reviewers 
gradually  brought  into  public  appreciation 
the  vague  potentialities,  not  necessarily  the 
bare  actualities,  of  modest  young  Sands  him 
self.  Eventually,  no  doubt,  there  would  be  a 
day  for  you  at  Sandringham  with  the  royal 
ladies.  They  would  drive  you  over — I  have 
not  the  least  idea  how  great  the  distance  is — 
to  drink  tea  at  Stonehenge.  Imagine  your 
self,  it  having  naturally  turned  into  a  rainy 
English  afternoon,  imagine  yourself  seated 
under  a  heavy  black-silk  English  umbrella  on 
a  bare  cromlech,  the  oldest  throne  in  England, 
tearing  at  an  Anglo-Saxon  muffin  of  purest 
strain  and  surrounded  by  male  and  female 
admirers,  all  under  heavy  black-silk  umbrellas 
— Spitalsfield,  I  suppose — as  Mrs.  Beverley 
Sands. 

Remember,  madam,  or  miss,  that  this  for 
eign  triumph,  this  career  of  glory,  comes 
to  you  strictly  from  me.  To  you,  of  your 
self,  it  is  inaccessible.  Look  upon  it  as  in 
part  the  property  that  I  am  to  settle  upon 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        23 

you  at  the  time  of  our  union — my  honours. 
You  have  already  understood  from  me  that 
my  entire  estate,  both  my  real  estate  and  my 
unreal  estate,  consists  of  future  honours. 
Those  I  have  just  described  are  an  early  pay 
ment  on  the  marriage  contract — foreign  ex- 
change! 

What  reply,  then,  in  your  behalf  am  I  to 
send  to  the  lofty  and  benevolent  Black- 
thornes?  As  matters  halt  between  us — he 
also  loves  who  only  writes  and  waits — I  can 
merely  inform  Mr.  Blackthorne  that  there  is 
a  Mrs.  Beverlev  Sand?,  but  that  she  persists 
in  remaining  a  Miss  Snowden.  With  this 
realisation  of  what  you  will  lose  as  Miss 
Snowden  and  will  gain  as  Mrs.  Sands,  do  you 
not  think  it  wise — and  wise  you  are,  Till}  — 
any  longer  to  persist  in  your  persistence? 
You  once,  in  a  moment  of  weakness,  conf  c 


to  me — think  of  your  having  a  moment  of 
weakness! — you  once  confessed  to  me,  though 
you  may  deny  it  now  (Balzac  defines  woman 
as  the  angel  or  devil  who  denies  every  thing 
when  it  suits  her),  you  once  confessed  to  me 
that  you  feared  your  life  would  be  taken  up 
with  two  protracted  pleasures,  each  of  which 
curtailed  the  other:  the  pleasure  of  being  en- 


24        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

gaged  to  me  a  long  time  and  the  pleasure  of 
being  married  to  me  a  long  time.  Nerve 
yourself  to  shortening  the  first  in  order  to 
enter  upon  the  compensations  of  the  second. 

Yet  remorse  racks  me  even  at  the  prospect 
of  obliterating  from  the  world  one  whom  I 
first  knew  and  loved  in  it  as  Tilly  Snowden. 
Where  will  Tilly  Snowden  be  when  only  Mrs. 
Beverley  Sands  is  left?  Where  will  be  that 
wild  rose  in  a  snow  bank — the  rose  which  was 
truly  wild,  the  snow  bank  which  was  not  cold 
(or  was  it?)?  I  think  I  should  easily  become 
reconciled  to  your  being  known,  say,  as 
Madame  Snowden,  so  that  you  might  still 
stand  out  in  your  own  right  and  wild-rose  in 
dividuality.  We  could  visit  England  as  the 
rising  American  author,  Beverley  Sands,  and 
his  lovely  risen  wife,  Madame  Snowden. 
Everybody  would  then  be  asking  who  the 
mysterious  Madame  Snowden  was,  and  I 
should  relate  that  she  was  a  retired  opera 
singer — having  retired  before  she  advanced. 

By  the  way,  you  confided  to  me  some  time 
ago  that  you  were  not  very  well.  You  always 
look  well,  mighty  well  to  me,  Tilly.  Perfect 
ly  well  to  me.  Can  your  indisposition  be 
imaginary?  Or  is  it  merely  fashionable? 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        25 

Or — is  it  something  else?  What  of  late  has 
sickened  me  is  an  idea  of  yours  that  you 
might  sometime  consult  Doctor  G.  M.  Tilly! 
Tilly!  If  you  knew  the  pains  that  rack  me 
when  I  think  of  that  charlatan's  door  being 
closed  behind  you  as  a  patient  of  his! 

Tell  me  it  isn't  true,  and  answer  about  the 
beautiful  Blackthornes! 

Your  easy  and  your  uneasy 

BEVERLEY. 


TILLY    SNOWDEN   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

"Slippery  Elm"  Apartments, 
June  4. 

I  am  perfectly  willing,  Beverley,  to  crown 
you  with  slippery  elm — you  seem  to  think  I 
keep  it  on  hand,  dwell  in  a  bower  of  it — if  it 
is  the  leaf  you  sigh  for.  But  please  do  not 
try  to  crown  me  with  a  wig  of  your  creative 
hair;  that  is,  with  your  literary  honours. 

How  wonderfully  the  impressions  of  child 
hood  disappear  from  memory  like  breaths  on 
a  warm  mirror,  but  long  afterwards  return  to 
their  shapes  if  the  glass  be  coldly  breathed 
upon!  As  I  read  your  letter,  at  least  as  I  read 


26        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

the  very  chilly  Blackthorne  parts  of  your 
letter,  I  remembered,  probably  for  the  first 
time  in  years,  a  friend  of  my  mother's. 

She  had  been  inveigled  to  become  the  wife, 
that  is,  the  legally  installed  life-assistant,  of 
an  exceedingly  popular  minister;  and  when  I 
was  a  little  girl,  but  not  too  little  to  under 
stand — was  I  ever  too  little  to  understand  ?— 
she  used  to  slip  across  the  street  to  our  house 
and  in  confidence  to  my  mother  pour  out  her 
sense  of  humour  at  the  part  assigned  her  by 
the  hired  wedding  march  and  evangelical 
housekeeping.  I  recall  one  of  those  half- 
whispered,  always  half-whispered,  confidences 
— for  how  often  in  life  one  feels  guilty  when 
telling  the  truth  and  innocent  when  lying! 

On  this  particular  morning  she  and  my 
mother  laughed  till  they  were  weary,  while  I 
danced  round  them  with  delight  at  the  idea 
of  having  even  the  tip  of  my  small  but  very  ac 
tive  finger  in  any  pie  that  savoured  of  mischief. 
She  had  been  telling  my  mother  that  if,  some 
Sunday,  her  husband  accidentally  preached  a 
sermon  which  brought  people  into  the  church, 
she  felt  sure  of  soon  receiving  a  turkey.  If  he 
made  a  rousing  plea  for  foreign  missions,  she 
might  possibly  look  out  for  a  pair  of  ducks. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        27 

Her  destiny,  as  she  viewed  it,  was  to  be 
merely  a  strip  of  worthless  territory  lying 
alongside  the  land  of  Canaan;  people  simply 
walked  over  her,  tramped  across  her,  on  their 
way  to  Canaan,  carrying  all  sorts  of  bountiful 
things  to  Canaan,  her  husband. 

That  childish  nonsense  comes  back  to  me 
strangely,  and  yet  not  strangely  as  I  think  of 
your  funny  letter,  your  very,  very  funny 
letter,  about  the  Blackthornes'  invitation  to 
me  because  I  am  not  myself  but  am  possibly 
a  Mrs. — well,  some  Mrs.  Sands.  The  English 
scenes  you  describe  I  see  but  too  vividly:  it 
is  Canaan  and  his  strip  all  over  again — there 
on  the  English  lawns;  a  great  many  heavy 
English  people  are  tramping  heavily  over  me 
on  their  way  to  Canaan.  The  fabulous  tea  at 
Sandringham  would  be  Canaan's  cup,  and  at 
Stonehenge  it  would  be  Canaan's  muffin  that 
at  last  choked  to  death  the  ill-fated  Tilly 
Snowden. 

In  order  to  escape  such  a  fate,  Tilly  Snow- 
den,  then,  begs  that  you  will  thank  the  Black- 
thornes,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  as  best  you  can  for 
their  invitation;  as  best  she  can  she  thanks 
you ;  but  for  the  present,  and  for  how  much  of 
the  future  she  does  not  know,  she  prefers  to 


28       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

remain  what  is  very  necessary  to  her  inde 
pendence  and  therefore  to  her  happiness;  and 
also  what  is  quite  pleasing  to  her  ear — the 
wild  rose  in  the  snow  bank  (cold  or  not  cold, 
according  to  the  sun). 

In  other  words,  my  dear  Beverley,  it  is  true 
that  I  have  more  than  once  postponed  the 
date  of  our  marriage.  I  have  never  said  why; 
perhaps  I  myself  have  never  known  just  why. 
But  at  least  do  not  expect  me  to  shorten  the 
engagement  in  order  that  I  may  secure  some 
share  of  your  literary  honours.  As  a  little 
girl  I  always  despised  queens  who  were 
crowned  with  their  husbands.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  the  queen  was  crowned  with  what 
was  left  over  and  was  merely  allowed  to  sit 
on  the  corner  of  the  throne  as  the  poor  con 
nection. 

P.  S. — Still,  I  would  like  to  go  to  England. 
I  mean,  of  course,  I  wish  we  could  go  on  our 
wedding  journey!  If  I  got  ready,  could  I 
rely  upon  you?  I  have  always  wished  to  visit 
England  without  being  debarred  from  its 
social  life.  Seriously,  the  invitation  of  the 
Blackthornes  looks  to  me  like  an  opportunity 
and  an  advantage  not  to  be  thrown  away. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        29 

Wisdom  never  wastes,  and  you  say  I  am 
wise! 

It  is  true  that  I  have  not  been  feeling  very 
well.  And  it  is  true  that  I  have  consulted 
Dr.  Marigold  and  am  now  a  patient  of  his. 
That  dreaded  door  has  closed  behind  me!  I 
have  been  alone  with  him!  The  diagnosis  at 
least  was  delightful.  He  made  it  appear  like 
opening  a  golden  door  upon  a  charming  land 
scape.  I  had  but  to  step  outdoors  and  look 
around  with  a  pleasant  smile  and  say:  "Why, 
Health,  my  former  friend,  how  do  you  do! 
Why  did  you  go  back  on  me?"  He  tells  me 
my  trouble  is  a  mild  form  of  auto-intoxica 
tion.  I  said  to  him  that  must  be  the  disease; 
namely,  that  it  was  mild.  Never  in  my  life 
had  I  had  anything  that  was  mild!  Disease 
from  my  birth  up  had  attacked  me  only  in  its 
most  virulent  form:  so  had  health.  I  had 
always  enjoyed — and  suffered  from — virulent 
health.  I  am  going  to  take  the  Bulgar  bacillus. 

Why  do  you  dislike  Dr.  Marigold?  Popular 
physicians  are  naturally  hated  by  unpopular 
physicians.  But  how  does  he  run  against  or 
run  over  you? 

Which  of  your  books  was  it  the  conde 
scending  Englishman  liked?  Suppose  you 


30       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

send  me  a  copy.  Why  not  send  me  a  copy  of 
each  of  your  books?  Those  you  gave  me  as 
they  came  out  seem  to  have  disappeared. 

The  wild  rose  is  now  going  to  pour  down 
her  graceful  stalk  a  tubeful  of  the  Balkan 
bacillus. 

More  trouble  with  the  Balkans ! 

TILLY 

(auto-intoxicated,  not  otherwise  in 
toxicated!  Thank  Heaven  at  least 
for  that!). 


BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BEN   DOOLITTLE 

June  5- 
DEAR  BEN: 

A  bolt  of  divine  lightning  has  struck  me 
out  of  the  smiling  blue,  a  benign  fulmination 
from  an  Olympian. 

To  descend  the  long  slope  of  Olympus  to 
you.  A  few  days  ago  I  received  a  letter  from 
the  great  English  novelist,  Edward  Black- 
thorne,  in  praise  of  my  work.  The  great 
Edward  reads  my  books  and  the  great  Ben 
Doolittle  doesn't — score  heavily  for  the  afore 
said  illustrious  Eddy. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        31 

Of  course  I  have  for  years  known  that  you 
do  not  cast  your  legal  or  illegal  eyes  on  fiction, 
though  not  long  ago  I  heard  you  admit  that 
you  had  read  "Ten  Thousand  a  Year."  On 
the  ground,  that  it  is  a  lawyer's  novel :  which  is 
no  ground  at  all,  a  mere  mental  bog.  My 
own  opinion  of  why  you  read  it  is  that  you 
were  in  search  of  information  how  to  make 
the  ten  thousand!  As  a  literary  performance 
your  reading  "Ten  Thousand  a  Year"  may 
be  likened  to  the  movement  of  a  land-turtle 
which  has  crossed  to  the  opposite  side  of  his 
dusty  road  to  bite  off  a  new  kind  of  weed, 
waddling  along  his  slow  way  under  the  im 
penetrable  roof  of  his  own  back. 

For,  my  dear  Ben,  whom  I  love  and  trust 
as  I  love  and  trust  no  other  human  being  in 
this  world,  do  you  know  what  I  think  of  you 
as  most  truly  being?  The  very  finest  possible 
specimen  of  the  highest  order  of  human  land- 
turtle.  A  land-turtle  is  a  creature  that  lives 
under  a  shovel  turned  upside  down  over  it, 
called  its  back;  and  a  human  land-turtle  is  a 
fellow  who  thrives  under  the  roof  of  the  five 
senses  and  the  practical.  Never  does  a  turtle 
get  from  under  his  carapace,  and  never  does 
the  man-turtle  get  beyond  the  shovel  of  his 


32       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

five  senses.  Of  course  you  realise  that  not 
during  our  friendship  have  I  paid  you  so  ex 
travagant  a  compliment.  For  the  human  race 
has  to  be  largely  made  up  of  millions  of  land- 
turtles.  They  cause  the  world  to  go  slowly, 
and  it  is  the  admirable  stability  of  their  lives 
neither  to  soar  nor  to  sink.  You  are  a  land- 
turtle,  Benjamin  Doolittle,  Esquire;  you  live 
under  the  shell  of  the  practical;  that  is,  you 
have  no  imagination;  that  is,  you  do  not  read 
fiction;  that  is,  you  do  not  read  Me!  There 
fore  I  harbour  no  grievance  against  you,  but 
cherish  all  the  confidence  and  love  in  the 
world  for  you.  But,  mind  you,  only  as  an 
unparalleled  creeping  thing. 

To  get  on  with  the  business  of  this  letter: 
the  English  novelist  laid  aside  his  enthusiasm 
for  my  work  long  enough  to  make  a  request: 
he  asked  me  to  send  him  some  Kentucky 
ferns  for  his  garden.  Owing  to  my  long  ab 
sence  from  Kentucky  I  am  no  longer  in  touch 
with  people  and  things  down  there.  But  you 
left  that  better  land  only  a  few  years  ago.  I 
recollect  that  of  old  you  manifested  a  weak 
ness  for  sending  flowers  to  womankind — 
another  evidence,  by  the  way,  of  lack  of 
imagination.  Such  conduct  shows  a  mere 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        33 

botanical  estimate  of  the  grand  passion.  The 
only  true  lovers,  the  only  real  lovers,  that 
women  ever  have  are  men  of  imagination. 
Why  should  these  men  send  a  common 
florist's  flowers!  They  grow  and  offer  their 
own — the  roses  of  Elysium! 

To  pass  on,  you  must  still  have  clinging  to 
your  memory,  like  bats  to  a  darkened,  disused 
wall,  the  addresses  of  various  Louisville  flor 
ists  who,  by  daylight  or  candlelight  and  no 
light  at  all,  were  the  former  emissaries  of  your 
folly  and  your  fickleness.  Will  you  send  me 
at  once  the  address  of  a  firm  in  whose  hands 
I  could  safely  entrust  this  very  high-minded 
international  piece  of  business? 

Inasmuch  as  you  are  now  a  New  York 
lawyer  and  inasmuch  as  New  York  lawyers 
charge  for  everything — concentration  of  mind, 
if  they  have  any  mind,  tax  on  memory  and 
tax  on  income,  their  powers  of  locomotion  and 
of  prevarication,  club  dues  and  death  dues, 
time  and  tumult,  strikes  and  strokes,  and  all 
other  items  of  haste  and  waste,  you  are 
authorised  to  regard  this  letter  a  professional 
demand  and  to  let  me  have  a  reasonable  bill 
at  a  not  too  early  date.  Charge  for  whatever 
you  will,  but,  I  charge  you,  charge  me  not  for 


34       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

your  friendship.  "  Naught  that  makes  life 
most  worth  while  can  be  had  for  gold." 
(Rather  elegant  extract  from  one  of  my 
novels  which  you  disdain  to  read !) 

I  shall  be  greatly  obliged  if  you  will  let  me 
have  an  immediate  reply. 

BEVERLEY. 

How  is  the  fair  Polly  Boles  ?  Still  pretend 
ing  to  quarrel?  And  do  you  still  keep  up  the 
pretence  ? 

Predestined  magpies! 


BEN   DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

150  Broad  Street, 
June  5. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

Your  highly  complimentary  and  philo 
sophical  missive  is  before  my  eyes. 

You  understand  French,  not  I.  But  I  have 
accumulated  a  few  quotations  which  I  some 
times  venture  to  use  in  writing,  never  in 
my  proud  oral  delivery.  If  I  pronounced  to 
the  French  the  French  with  which  I  am 
familiar,  the  French  themselves  would  drive 
their  own  vernacular  out  of  their  land — over 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        35 

into  Germany!    Here  is  one  of  those  fond  in 
audible  phrases: 

A  chaque  oiseau 
Son  nid  est  beau. 

That  is  to  say,  in  Greek,  every  Diogenes 
prefers  his  own  tub. 

The  lines  are  a  trophy  captured  at  a  college- 
club  dinner  the  other  night.  One  of  the 
speakers  launched  the  linguistic  marvel  on  the 
blue  cloud  of  smoke  and  it  went  bumping 
around  the  heads  of  the  guests  without  find 
ing  any  head  to  enter,  like  a  cork  bobbing 
about  the  edges  of  a  pond,  trying  in  vain  to 
strike  a  place  to  land.  But  everybody 
cheered  uproariously,  made  happy  by  the 
discovery  that  someone  actually  could  say 
something  at  a  New  York  dinner  that  nobody 
had  heard  before.  One  man  next  to  the 
speaker  (of  course  coached  beforehand)  passed 
a  translation  to  his  elbow  neighbour.  It  made 
its  way  down  the  table  to  me  at  the  other  end 
and  I,  in  the  New  York  way,  laid  it  up  for 
future  use  at  a  dinner  in  some  other  city. 
Meantime  I  use  it  now  on  you. 

It  is  true  that  I  arrived  in  New  York  from 
Kentucky  some  years  ago.  It  is  likewise  un- 


36       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

deniable  that  for  some  years  previous  thereto 
I  had  dealings  with  Louisville  florists.  But  I 
affirm  now,  and  all  these  variegated  gentle 
men,  if  they  are  gentlemen,  would  gladly 
come  on  to  New  York  as  my  witnesses  and 
bear  me  out  in  the  joyful  affidavit,  that  what 
ever  folly  or  recklessness  or  madness  marked 
my  behaviour,  never  once  did  I  commit  the 
futility,  the  imbecility,  of  trafficking  in  ferns. 

A  great  English  novelist — ferns!  A  rising 
young  American  novelist — ferns!  Frogstools, 
mushrooms,  fungi!  Man  alive,  why  don't  you 
ship  him  a  dray-load  of  Kentucky  spiderwebs? 
Or  if  they  should  be  too  gross  for  his  delicate 
soul,  a  birdcage  containing  a  pair  of  warbling 
young  bluegrass  moonbeams? 

I  am  a  land-turtle,  am  I  ?  If  it  be  so,  thank 
God!  If  I  have  no  imagination,  thank  God! 
If  I  live  and  move  and  have  my  being  under 
the  shovel  of  the  five  senses  and  of  the  prac 
tical,  thank  God !  But,  my  good  fellow,  whom 
I  love  and  trust  as  I  love  and  trust  no  other 
man,  if  I  am  a  turtle,  do  you  know  what  I 
think  of  you  as  most  truly  being? 

A  poor,  harmless  tinker. 

You,  with  your  pastime  of  fabricating 
novels,  dwell  in  a  little  workshop  of  the 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        37 

imagination;  you  tinker  with  what  you  are 
pleased  to  call  human  lives,  reality,  truth. 
On  your  shop  door  should  hang  a  sign  to 
catch  the  eye:  "Tinkering  done  here.  Noble, 
splendid  tinkering.  No  matter  who  you  are, 
what  your  past  career  or  present  extremity, 
come  in  and  let  the  owner  of  this  shop  make 
your  acquaintance  and  he  will  work  you  over 
into  something  finer  than  you  have  ever  been 
or  in  this  world  will  ever  be.  For  he  will  make 
you  into  an  unfallen  original  or  into  a  per 
fected  final.  If  you  have  never  had  a  chance 
to  do  your  best  in  life,  he  will  give  you  that 
chance  in  a  story.  All  unfortunates,  all  the 
broken-down,  especially  welcome.  Everybody 
made  over  to  be  as  everybody  should  be  by 
Beverley  Sands." 

But,  brother,  the  sole  thing  with  which  you, 
the  tinker,  do  business  is  the  sole  thing  with 
which  I,  the  turtle,  do  not  do  business.  I,  as 
a  lawyer,  cannot  tamper  with  human  life, 
actuality,  truth.  During  the  years  that  I 
have  been  an  attorney  never  have  I  had  a 
case  in  court  without  first  of  all  things  looking 
for  the  element  of  imagination  in  it  and  trying 
to  stamp  that  element  out  of  the  case  and  kick 
it  out  of  the  courtroom :  that  lurking  scoundrel, 


38       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

that  indefatigable  mischief-maker,  your  beau 
tiful  and  beloved  patron  power — imagination. 

Going  on  to  testify  out  of  my  experience  as 
a  land-turtle,  I  depose  the  following,  having 
kissed  the  Bible,  to  wit:  that  during  the 
turtle's  travels  he  sooner  or  later  crosses  the 
tracks  of  most  of  the  other  animal  creatures 
and  gets  to  know  them  and  their  ways.  But 
there  is  one  path  of  one  creature  marked  for 
unique  renown  among  nose-bearing  men: 
that  of  a  graceful,  agile,  little  black-and-white 
piece  of  soft-furred  nocturnal  innocence — sur- 
named  the  polecat. 

Now  the  imagination,  as  long  as  it  is  favour 
ably  disposed,  may  in  your  profession  be  the 
harmless  bird  of  paradise  or  whatever  winged 
thing  you  will  that  soars  innocently  toward 
bright  skies;  but,  once  unkindly  disposed,  it 
is  in  my  profession,  and  in  every  other,  the 
polecat  of  the  human  faculties.  When  it  has 
testified  against  you,  it  vanishes  from  the 
scene,  but  the  whole  atmosphere  reeks  with 
its  testimony. 

Hence  it  is  that  I  go  gunning  first  for  this 
same  little  animal  whose  common  den  is  the 
lawsuit.  His  abode  is  everywhere,  though 
you  never  seem  to  have  encountered  him  in 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        39 

your  work  and  walks.  If  you  should  do  so,  if 
you  should  ever  run  into  the  polecat  of  a  hostile 
imagination,  oh,  then,  my  dear  fellow,  may 
the  land-turtle  be  able  to  crawl  to  you  and 
stand  by  you  in  that  hour! 

But — the  tinker  to  his  work,  the  turtle  to 
his !  A  chaque  oiseau!  Diogenes,  your  tub ! 

As  to  the  fern  business,  I'll  inquire  of  Polly. 
I  paid  for  the  flowers,  she  got  them.  Anybody 
can  receive  money  for  blossoms,  but  only  a 
statesman  and  a  Christian,  I  suppose,  can 
fill  an  order  for  flowers  with  equity  and  fresh 
buds.  Go  ahead  and  try  Phillips  &  Faulds. 
You  could  reasonably  rely  upon  them  to  fill 
any  order  that  you  might  place  in  their  hands, 
however  nonsensical  -  comical,  billy  -  goatian- 
satirical  it  may  be.  They'd  send  your  Eng 
lishman  an  opossum  with  a  pouch  full  of 
blooming  hyacinths  if  that  would  quiet  his 
longing  and  make  him  happy.  I  should  think 
it  might. 

We  are,  sir,  your  obliged  counsel  and  turtle, 
BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 

How  is  the  fair  Tilly  Snowden  ?    Still  cooing  ? 
Are  you  still  cooing? 
Uncertain  doves! 


40       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

750  Broad  Street, 
June  5, 
DEAR  POLLY: 

I  send  you  some  red  roses  to  go  with  your 
black  hair  and  your  black  eyes,  never  so 
black  as  when  black  with  temper.  When 
may  I  come  to  see  you?  Why  not  to-morrow 
night? 

Another  matter,  not  so  vital  but  still  im 
portant:  a  few  years  before  we  left  Louisville 
to  seek  our  fortunes  (and  misfortunes)  in  New 
York,  I  at  different  times  employed  divers 
common  carriers  known  as  florists  to  convey 
to  you  inflammatory  symbols  of  those  emo 
tions  that  could  not  be  depicted  in  writing 
fluid.  In  other  words,  I  hired  those  merce 
naries  to  impress  my  infatuation  upon  you  in 
terms  of  their  costliest,  most  sensational  mer 
chandise.  You  should  be  prepared  to  say 
which  of  these  florists  struck  you  as  the  best 
business  agent. 

Would  you  send  me  the  address  of  that  man 
or  of  that  firm?  Immediately  you  will  want 
to  know  why.  Always  suspicious!  Let  the 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        41 

suspicions  be  quieted;  it  is  not  I,  it  is  Beverley. 
Some  foggy-headed  Englishman  has  besought 
him  to  ship  him  (the  foggy  one)  some  Ken 
tucky  vegetation  all  the  way  across  the 
broad  Atlantic  to  his  wet  domain — inter 
locking  literary  idiots!  Beverley  appeals  to 
me,  I  to  you,  the  highest  court  in  every 
thing. 

Are  you  still  enjoying  the  umbrageous  so 
ciety  of  that  giraffe-headed  jackass,  Doctor 
Claude  Mullen?  Can  you  still  tolerate  his 
unimpassioned  propinquity  and  futile  gyra 
tions?  He  a  nerve  specialist!  The  only  nerve 
in  his  practice  is  his  nerve.  Doesn't  my 
love  satisfy  you?  Isn't  there  enough  of  it? 
Isn't  it  the  right  kind?  Will  it  ever  give 
out? 

Your  reply,  then,  will  cover  four  points: 
to  thank  me  for  the  red  roses;  to  say  when  I 
may  come  to  see  you;  to  send  me  the  address 
of  the  Louisville  florist  who  became  most 
favourably  known  to  you  through  a  reckless 
devotion;  and  to  explain  your  patience  with 
that  unhappy  fool. 

Thy  sworn  and  thy  swain, 

BEN  DOOLITTLE. 


42       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

The  Franklin  Flats, 
June  6. 
MY  DEAR  BEN: 

Your  writing  to  me  for  the  name  of  a  Louis 
ville  florist  is  one  of  your  flimsiest  subterfuges. 
What  you  wished  to  receive  from  me  was  a 
letter  of  reassurance.  You  were  disagreeable 
on  your  last  visit  and  you  have  since  been 
concerned  as  to  how  I  felt  about  it  afterwards. 
Now  you  try  to  conciliate  me  by  invoking  my 
aid  as  indispensable.  That  is  like  you  men! 
If  one  of  you  can  but  make  a  woman  forget, 
if  he  can  but  lead  her  to  forgive  him,  by  flat 
tering  her  with  the  idea  that  she  is  indis 
pensable!  And  that  is  like  woman!  I  see  her 
figure  standing  on  the  long  road  of  time: 
dumbly,  patiently  standing  there,  waiting  for 
some  male  to  pass  along  and  permit  her  to 
accompany  him  as  his  indispensable  fellow- 
traveller.  I  am  now  to  be  put  in  a  good 
humour  by  being  honoured  with  your  request 
that  I  supply  you  with  the  name  of  a  florist. 

Well,  you  poor,  uninformed  Ben,  I'll  supply 
you.  All  the  Louisville  florists,  as  I  thought 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        43 

at  the  time,  carried  out  their  instructions 
faithfully;  that  is,  from  each  I  occasionally 
received  flowers  not  fresh.  Did  it  occur  to 
me  to  blame  the  florists?  Never!  I  did  what 
a  woman  always  does:  she  thinks  less  of — 
well,  she  doesn't  think  less  of  the  florist! 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Beverley  might  try 
Phillips  &  Faulds  for  whatever  he  is  to  export. 
As  nearly  as  I  now  remember  they  sent  the 
biggest  boxes  of  whatever  you  ordered ! 

I  have  an  appointment  for  to-morrow  night, 
but  I  think  I  can  arrange  to  divide  the  even 
ing,  giving  you  the  later  half.  It  shall  be  for 
you  to  say  whether  the  best  half  was  yours. 
That  will  depend  upon  you. 

I  still  enjoy  the  "umbrageous  society"  of 
Dr.  Claude  Mullen  because  he  loves  me  and 
I  do  not  love  him.  The  fascination  of  his 
presence  lies  in  my  indifference.  Perhaps 
women  are  so  seldom  safe  with  the  men  who 
love  them,  that  any  one  of  us  feels  herself 
entitled  to  make  the  most  of  a  rare  chance! 
I  am  not  only  safe,  I  am  entertained.  As  I 
go  down  into  the  parlour,  I  almost  feel  that 
I  ought  to  buy  a  ticket  to  a  performance  in 
my  own  private  theatre. 

Ben,   dear,   are  you  going  to  commit  the 


44       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

folly  of  being  jealous  ?  If  I  had  to  marry  him, 
do  you  know  what  my  first  wifely  present 
would  be?  A  liberal  transfusion  of  my  own 
blood!  As  soon  as  I  enter  the  room,  what 
fascinates  me  are  his  lower  eyelids,  which 
hold  little  cupfuls  of  sentimental  fluid.  I  am 
always  expecting  the  little  pools  to  run  over: 
then  there  would  be  tears.  The  night  he  goes 
for  good — perhaps  they  will  be  tears  that 
night. 

If  you  ask  me  how  can  I,  if  I  feel  thus  about 
him,  still  encourage  his  visits,  I  have  simply 
to  say  that  I  don't  know.  When  it  comes  to 
what  a  woman  will  "receive"  in  such  cases, 
the  ground  she  walks  on  is  very  uncertain  to 
her  own  feet.  It  may  be  that  the  one  thing 
she  forever  craves  and  forever  fears  not  to 
get  is  absolute  certainty,  certainty  that  some 
day  love  for  her  will  not  be  over,  everything  be 
not  ended  she  knows  not  why.  Dr.  Mullen's 
love  is  pitiful,  and  as  long  as  a  man's  love  is 
pitiful  at  least  a  woman  can  be  sure  of  it. 
Therefore  he  is  irresistible — as  my  guest! 

The  roses  are  glorious.  I  bury  my  face  in 
them  down  to  the  thorns.  And  then  I  come 
over  and  sign  my  name  as  the  indispensable 

POLLY  BOLES. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        45 

POLLY   BOLES   TO   TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  6. 
DEAR  TILLY: 

I  have  had  a  note  from  Beverley,  asking 
whether  he  could  come  this  evening.  I  have 
written  that  I  have  an  appointment,  but  I  did 
not  enlighten  him  as  to  the  appointment  being 
with  you.  Why  not  let  him  suffer  awhile?  I 
will  explain  afterwards.  I  told  him  that  I 
could  perhaps  arrange  to  divide  the  evening; 
would  you  mind?  And  would  you  mind  com 
ing  early?  I  will  do  as  much  for  you  some 
time,  and  /  suspect  I  couldn't  do  more! 

P.  S. — Rather  than  come  for  the  first  half 
of  the  evening  perhaps  you  would  prefer  to 
postpone  your  visit  altogether.  It  would 
suit  me  just  as  well;  better  in  fact.  There 
really  was  something  very  particular,  Tilly 
dear,  that  I  wanted  to  talk  to  Ben  about 
to-night. 

I  shall  not  look  for  you  at  all  this  evening, 
best  of  friends. 

POLLY  BOLES. 


46       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

TILLY   SNOWDEN   TO    POLLY   BOLES 

June  6. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

The  very  particular  something  to  talk  to 
Ben  about  to-night  is  the  identical  something 
for  every  other  night.  And  nothing  could  be 
more  characteristic  of  you,  as  soon  as  you 
heard  that  my  visit  would  clash  with  one  of 
his,  than  your  eagerness  to  push  me  partly 
out  of  the  house  in  a  hurried  letter  and  then 
push  me  completely  out  in  a  quiet  postscript. 
Being  a  woman,  I  understand  your  tempta 
tion  and  your  tactics.  I  fully  sympathise 
with  you. 

Continue  in  ease  of  mind,  my  most  trusted 
intimate.  I  shall  not  drop  in  to  interrupt  you 
and  Ben — both  not  so  young  as  you  once  were 
and  both  getting  stout — heavy  Polly,  heavy 
Ben — as  you  sit  side  by  side  in  your  little 
Franklin  Flat  parlour.  That  parlour  always 
suggests  to  me  an  enormous  turnip  hollowed 
out  square:  with  no  windows;  with  a  hole  on 
one  side  to  come  in  and  a  hole  on  the  other 
side  to  go  out;  upholstered  in  enormous 
bunches  of  beets  and  horse-radish,  and  lighted 
with  a  wilted  electric  sunflower.  There  you 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        47 

two  will  sit  to-night,  heavy  Polly,  heavy  Ben, 
suffocating  for  fresh  air  and  murmuring  to 
each  other  as  you  have  murmured  for  years: 

"I  do!  I  do!" 

"I  do!  I  do!" 

One  sentence  in  your  letter,  Polly  dear, 
takes  your  photograph  like  a  camera;  the  re 
sult  is  a  striking  likeness.  That  sentence  is  this : 

"Why  not  let  him  suffer  awhile?  I  will  ex 
plain  afterwards." 

That  is  exactly  what  you  will  do,  what  you 
would  always  do:  explain  afterwards.  In 
other  words,  you  plot  to  make  Ben  jealous 
but  fear  to  make  him  too  jealous  lest  he  desert 
you.  If  on  the  evening  of  this  visit  you  should 
forget  "to  explain,"  and  if  during  the  night 
you  should  remember,  you  would,  if  need 
were,  walk  barefoot  through  the  streets  in 
your  nightgown  and  tap  on  his  window- 
shutter,  if  you  could  reach  it,  and  say:  "Ben, 
that  appointment  wasn't  with  any  other  man; 
it  was  with  Tilly.  I  could  not  sleep  until  I 
had  told  you!" 

That  is,  you  have  already  disposed  of  your 
self,  breath  and  soul,  to  Ben;  and  while  you 
are  waiting  for  the  marriage  ceremony,  you 
have  espoused  in  his  behalf  what  you  consider 


48        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

your  best  and  strongest  trait — loyalty.  Under 
the  goadings  of  this  vampire  trait  you  will,  a 
few  years  after  marriage,  have  devoured  all 
there  is  of  Ben  alive  and  will  have  taken  your 
seat  beside  what  are  virtually  his  bones.  As 
the  years  pass,  the  more  ravenously  you  will 
preside  over  the  bones.  Never  shall  the  world 
say  that  Polly  Boles  was  disloyal  to  whatever 
was  left  of  her  dear  Ben  Doolittle! 

Your  loyalty!  I  believe  the  first  I  saw  of  it 
was  years  ago  one  night  in  Louisville  when 
you  and  I  were  planning  to  come  to  New  York 
to  live.  Naturally  we  were  much  concerned 
by  the  difficulties  of  choosing  our  respective 
New  York  residences  and  we  had  written  on 
and  had  received  thumb-nailed  libraries  of 
romance  about  different  places.  As  you 
looked  over  the  recommendations  of  each,  you 
came  upon  one  called  The  Franklin  Flats. 
The  circular  contained  appropriate  quota 
tions  from  Poor  Richard's  Almanac.  I  re 
member  how  your  face  brightened  as  you 
said:  "This  ought  to  be  the  very  thing." 
One  of  the  quotations  on  the  circular  ran 
somewhat  thus:  "Beware  of  meat  twice 
boiled";  and  you  said  in  consequence:  "So 
they  must  have  a  good  restaurant!" 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        49 

In  other  words,  you  believed  that  a  house 
named  after  Franklin  could  but  resemble 
Franklin.  A  building  put  up  in  New  York 
by  a  Tammany  contractor,  if  named  after 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  advertised  with  quota 
tions  from  Franklin's  works,  would  embody 
the  traits  of  that  remote  national  hero!  To 
your  mind — not  to  your  imagination,  for  you 
haven't  any — to  your  mind,  and  you  have  a 
great  deal  of  mind,  the  bell-boys,  the  super 
intendent,  the  scrub  woman,  the  chamber 
maids,  the  flunkied  knave  who  stands  at  the 
front  door — all  these  were  loyally  congregated 
as  about  a  beloved  mausoleum.  You  are  still 
in  the  Franklin  Flats !  I  know  what  you  have 
long  suffered  there;  but  move^way!  Not 
Polly  Boles.  She  will  be  loyal  to  the  building 
as  long  as  the  building  stands  by  the  con 
tractor  and  the  contractor  stands  by  profits 
and  losses. 

While  on  the  subject  of  loyalty,  not  your 
loyalty  but  woman's  loyalty,  I  mean  to  fin 
ish  with  it.  And  I  shall  go  on  to  say  that 
occasionally  I  have  sat  behind  a  plate-glass 
window  in  some  Fifth  Avenue  shop  and  have 
studied  woman's  organised  loyalty,  unionised 
loyalty,  standardised  loyalty.  This  takes 


50       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

effect  in  those  processions  that  now  and 
then  sweep  up  the  Avenue  as  though  they 
were  Crusaders  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  The 
marchers  try  first  not  to  look  self-conscious; 
all  try,  secondly,  to  look  devoted  to  "the 
cause."  But  beneath  all  other  expressions 
and  differences  of  expression  I  have  always 
seen  one  reigning  look  as  plainly  as  though  it 
were  printed  in  enormous  letters  on  a  banner 
flying  over  their  heads : 

"Strictly  Monogamous  Women." 

At  such  times  I  have  felt  a  wild  desire,  when 
I  should  hear  of  the  next  parade,  to  organise 
a  company  of  unenthralled  young  girls  who 
with  unfettered  natures  and  unfettered  fea 
tures  should  tramp  up  the  Avenue  under  their 
own  colours.  If  the  women  before  them — 
those  loyal  ones — would  actually  carry,  as 
they  should,  a  banner  with  the  legend  I  have 
described,  then  my  company  of  girls  should 
unfurl  to  the  breeze  their  flag  with  the  truth 
blazoned  on  it: 

"Not  Necessarily  Monogamous!" 

The  honest  human  crowd,  watching  and 
applauding  us,  would  pack  the  Avenue  from 
sidewalks  to  roofs. 

Between  you  and  me  everything  seems  to 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        51 

be  summed  up  in  one  difference:  all  my  life 
I  have  wanted  to  go  barefoot  and  all  your  life, 
no  matter  what  the  weather,  you  have  been 
solicitous  to  put  on  goloshes. 

My  very  nature  is  rooted  in  rebellion  that 
in  a  world  alive  and  running  over  with  irre 
sistible  people,  a  woman  must  be  doomed  to 
find  her  chief  happiness  in  just  one!  The 
heart  going  out  to  so  many  in  succession,  and 
the  hand  held  by  one;  year  after  year  your 
hand  held  by  the  first  man  who  impulsively 
got  possession  of  it.  Every  instinct  of  my 
nature  would  be  to  jerk  my  hand  away  and 
be  free!  To  give  it  again  and  again. 

This  subject  weighs  crushingly  on  me  as  I 
struggle  with  this  letter  because  I  have  tid 
ings  for  you  about  myself.  I  am  to  write 
words  which  I  have  long  doubted  I  should 
ever  write,  life's  most  iron-bound  words. 
Polly,  I  suppose  I  am  going  to  be  married  at 
last.  Of  course  it  is  Beverley.  Not  without 
waverings,  not  without  misgivings.  But  I'd 
feel  those,  be  the  man  whoever  he  might. 
Why  I  feel  thus  I  do  not  know,  but  I  know  I 
feel.  I  tell  you  this  first  because  it  was  you 
who  brought  Beverley  and  me  together,  who 
have  always  believed  in  his  career.  (Though 


52       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

I  think  that  of  late  you  have  believed  more 
in  him  and  less  in  me.)  I,  too,  am  beginning 
to  believe  in  his  career.  He  has  lately  ascer 
tained  that  his  work  is  making  a  splendid  im 
pression  in  England.  If  he  succeeds  in  Eng 
land,  he  will  succeed  in  this  country.  He  has 
received  an  invitation  to  visit  some  delightful 
and  very  influential  people  in  England  and 
"to  bring  me  along!"  Think  of  anybody 
bringing  me  along!  If  we  should  be  enter 
tained  by  these  people  [they  are  the  Black- 
thornes],  such  is  English  social  life,  that  we 
should  also  get  to  know  the  white  Thornes 
and  the  red  Thornes — the  whole  social  forest. 
The  iron  rule  of  my  childhood  was  economy; 
and  the  influence  of  that  iron  rule  over  me  is 
inexorable  still:  I  cannot  even  contemplate 
such  prodigal  wastage  in  life  as  not  to  accept 
this  invitation  and  gather  in  its  wealth  of 
consequences. 

More  news  of  me,  very,  very  important:  at 
last  I  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  George 
Marigold.  I  have  become  one  of  his  patients. 

Beverley  is  furious.  I  enclose  a  letter  from 
him.  You  need  not  return  it.  I  shall  not 
answer  it.  I  shall  leave  things  to  his  imagina 
tion  and  his  imagination  will  give  him  no  rest. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        53 

If  Ben  hurled  at  you  a  jealous  letter  about 
Dr.  Mullen,  you  would  immediately  write  to 
remove  his  jealousy.  You  would  even  ridicule 
Dr.  Mullen  to  win  greater  favour  in  Ben's 
eyes.  That  is,  you  would  do  an  abominable 
thing,  never  doubting  that  Ben  would  admire 
you  the  more.  And  you  would  be  right;  for 
as  Ben  observed  you  tear  Dr.  Mullen  to 
pieces  to  feed  his  vanity,  he  would  lean  back 
in  his  chair  and  chuckle  within  himself: 
"Glorious,  staunch  old  Polly!" 

And  what  you  would  do  in  this  instance  you 
will  do  all  your  life:  you  will  practise  disloyalty 
to  every  other  human  being,  as  in  this  letter 
you  have  practised  it  with  me,  for  the  sake 
of  loyalty  to  Ben:  your  most  pronounced, 
most  horrible  trait. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 

POLLY    BOLES   TO   TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  7. 
DEAR  TILLY: 

I  return  Beverley's  letter.  Without  com 
ment,  since  I  did  not  read  it.  You  know  how 
I  love  Beverley,  respect  him,  believe  in  him. 
I  have  a  feeling  for  him  unlike  that  for  any 


54        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

other  human  being,  not  even  Ben;  I  look  upon 
him  as  set  apart  and  sacred  because  he  has 
genius  and  belongs  to  the  world. 

As  for  his  faults,  those  that  I  have  not 
already  noticed  I  prefer  to  find  out  for  my 
self.  I  have  never  cared  to  discover  any 
human  being's  failings  through  a  third  person. 
Instead  of  getting  acquainted  with  the  par 
donable  traits  of  the  abused,  I  might  really 
be  introduced  to  the  abominable  traits  of  the 
abuser. 

Once  more,  you  think  you  are  going  to  marry 
Beverley!  I  shall  reserve  my  congratulations 
for  the  event  itself. 

Thank  you  for  surrendering  your  claim  on 
my  friendship  and  society  last  night.  Ben 
and  I  had  a  most  satisfactory  evening,  and 
when  not  suffocating  we  murmured  "I  do" 
to  our  hearts'  content. 

Next  time,  should  your  visits  clash,  I'll 
push  him  out.  Yet  I  feel  in  honour  bound  to 
say  that  this  is  only  my  present  state  of  mind. 
I  might  weaken  at  the  last  moment — even  in 
the  Franklin  Flats. 

As  to  some  things  in  your  letter,  I  have  long 
since  learned  not  to  bestow  too  much  atten 
tion  upon  anything  you  say.  You  court  a 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        55 

kind  of  irresponsibility  in  language.  With 
your  inborn  and  over-indulged  willfulness  you 
love  to  break  through  the  actual  and  to  revel 
in  the  imaginary.  I  have  become  rather  used 
to  this  as  one  of  your  growing  traits  and  I  arn 
therefore  not  surprised  that  in  this  letter  you 
say  things  which,  if  seriously  spoken,  would  in 
sult  your  sex  and  would  make  them  recoil 
from  you — or  make  them  wish  to  burn  you  at 
the  stake.  When  you  march  up  Fifth  Avenue 
with  your  company  of  girls  in  that  kind  of 
procession,  there  will  not  be  any  Fifth  Avenue: 
you  will  be  tramping  through  the  slums  where 
you  belong. 

All  this,  I  repeat,  is  merely  your  way — to 
take  things  out  in  talking.  But  we  can  make 
words  our  playthings  in  life's  shallows  until 
words  wreck  us  as  their  playthings  in  life's 
deeps. 

Still,  in  return  for  your  compliments  to  me, 
which,  of  course,  you  really  mean,  I  paid  you 
one  the  other  night  when  thinking  of  you 
quite  by  myself.  It  was  this:  nature  seems 
to  leave  something  out  of  each  of  us,  but  we 
presently  discover  that  she  perversely  put  it 
where  it  does  not  belong. 

What  she  left  out  of  you,  my  dear,  was  the 


56       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

domestic   tea-kettle.     There   isn't  even   any 
place  for  one.     But  she  made  up  for  lack  of 
the  kettle  by  rather  overdoing  the  stove! 
Your  discreet  friend, 

POLLY  BOLES. 


BEVERLEY   SANDS   TO    PHILLIPS   &    FAULDS 

Cathedral  Heights,  New  York, 
June  7,  1900. 
GENTLEMEN: 

A  former  customer  of  yours,  Mr.  Benjamin 
Doolittle,  has  suggested  your  firm  as  reliable 
agents  to  carry  out  an  important  commission, 
which  I  herewith  describe: 

I  enclose  a  list  of  Kentucky  ferns.  I  desire 
you  to  make  a  collection  of  these  ferns  and  to 
ship  them,  expenses  prepaid,  to  Edward 
Blackthorne,  Esquire,  King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England.  The  cost  is  not  to 
exceed  twenty-five  dollars.  To  furnish  you 
the  needed  guarantee,  as  well  as  to  avoid  un 
necessary  correspondence,  I  herewith  enclose, 
payable  to  your  order,  my  check  for  that 
amount. 

Will  you  let  me  have  a  prompt  reply,  stating 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        57 

whether  you  will  undertake  this  commission 
and  see  it  through  ? 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 

PHILLIPS    &    FAULDS    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Louisville p,  Ky., 
June  10,  IQOO. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  valued  letter  with  check  for  $25  re 
ceived.  We  handle  most  of  the  ferns  on  the 
list,  and  know  the  others  and  can  easily  get 
them. 

You  may  rely  upon  your  valued  order  re 
ceiving  the  best  attention.  Thanking  you  for 
the  same, 

Yours  very  truly, 

PHILLIPS  &  FAULDS. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE 

Cathedral  Heights,  New  York, 

June  75,  IQIO. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  BLACKTHORNE: 

Your  second  letter  came  into  the  port  of 
my  life  like  an  argosy  from  a  rich  land.  I 
think  you  must  have  sent  it  with  some  re- 


58       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

membrance  of  your  own  youth,  or  out  of  your 
mature  knowledge  of  youth  itself;  how  too 
often  it  walks  the  shore  of  its  rocky  world, 
cutting  its  bare  feet  on  sharp  stones,  as  it 
strains  its  eyes  toward  things  far  beyond  its 
horizon  but  not  beyond  its  faith  and  hope. 
Some  day  its  ship  comes  in  and  it  sets  sail 
toward  the  distant  ideal.  How  much  the  open 
ing  of  the  door  of  your  friendship,  of  your  life, 
means  to  me!  A  new  consecration  envelops 
the  world  that  I  am  to  be  the  guest  of  a  great 
man.  If  words  do  not  say  more,  it  is  because 
words  say  so  little. 

Delay  has  been  unavoidable  in  any  mere 
formal  acknowledgment  of  your  letter.  You 
spoke  in  it  of  the  hinges  of  a  book.  My 
silence  has  been  due  to  the  arrangement  of 
hinges  for  the  shipment  of  the  ferns.  I 
wished  to  insure  their  safe  transoceanic  pas 
sage  and  some  inquiries  had  to  be  made  in 
Kentucky. 

You  may  rely  upon  it  that  the  matter  will 
receive  the  best  attention.  In  good  time  the 
ferns,  having  reached  the  end  of  their  journey, 
will  find  themselves  put  down  in  your  garden 
as  helpless  immigrants.  From  what  outlook 
I  can  obtain  upon  the  scene  of  their  reception, 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        59 

they  should  lack  only  hands  to  reach  con 
fidingly  to  you  and  lack  only  feet  to  run  with 
all  their  might  away  from  Hodge. 

I  acknowledge — with  the  utmost  thanks — 
the  unusual  and  beautiful  courtesy  of  Mrs. 
Blackthorne's  and  your  invitation  to  my  wife, 
if  I  have  one,  and  to  me.  It  is  the  dilemma 
of  my  life,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  to  be 
obliged  to  say  that  such  a  being  as  Mrs. 
Sands  exists,  but  that  nevertheless  there  is  no 
such  person. 

Can  you  imagine  a  man's  stretching  out  his 
hand  to  pluck  a  peach  and  just  before  he 
touched  the  peach,  finding  only  the  bough  of 
the  tree?  Then,  as  from  disappointment  he 
was  about  to  break  off  the  offensive  bough, 
seeing  again  the  dangling  peach?  Can  you 
imagine  this  situation  to  be  of  long  con 
tinuance,  during  which  he  could  neither  take 
hold  of  the  peach  nor  let  go  of  the  tree — nor 
go  away?  If  you  can,  you  will  understand 
what  I  mean  when  I  say  that  my  bride  per 
sists  in  remaining  unwed  and  I  persist  in 
wooing.  I  do  not  know  why;  she  protests 
that  she  does  not  know;  but  we  do  know  that 
life  is  short,  love  shorter,  that  time  flies,  and 
we  are  not  husband  and  wife. 


60       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

If  she  remains  undecided  when  Summer  re 
turns,  I  hope  Mrs.  Blackthorne  and  you  will 
let  me  come  alone. 

Thus  I  can  thank  you  with  certainty  for 
one  with  the  hope  that  I  may  yet  thank  you 
for  two. 

I  am, 

Sincerely  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


P.  S. — Can  you  pardon  the  informality  of 
a  postscript? 

As  far  as  I  can  see  clearly  into  a  cloudy 
situation,  marriage  is  denied  me  on  account 
of  the  whole  unhappy  history  of  woman — 
which  is  pretty  hard.  But  a  good  many 
American  ladies — the  one  I  woo  among  them 
— are  indignant  just  now  that  they  are  being 
crowded  out  of  their  destinies  by  husbands — 
or  even  possibly  by  bachelors.  These  ladies 
deliver  lectures  to  one  another  with  discon 
tented  eloquence  and  rouse  their  auditresses 
to  feministic  frenzy  by  reminding  them  that 
for  ages  woman  has  walked  in  the  shadow  of 
man  and  that  the  time  has  come  for  the  worm 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        61 

[the  woman]  to  turn  on  the  shadow  or  to 
crawl  out  of  it. 

My  dear  Mr.  Blackthorne,  I  need  hardly 
say  that  the  only  two  shadows  I  could  ever 
think  of  casting  on  the  woman  I  married 
would  be  that  of  my  umbrella  whenever  it 
rained,  and  that  of  her  parasol  whenever  the 
sun  shone.  But  I  do  maintain  that  if  there 
is  not  enough  sunshine  for  the  men  and  women 
in  the  world,  if  there  has  to  be  some  casting 
of  shadows  in  the  competition  and  the  crowd 
ing,  I  do  maintain  that  the  casting  of  the 
shadow  would  better  be  left  to  the  man.  He 
has  had  long  training,  terrific  experience,  in 
this  mortal  business  of  casting  the  shadow, 
has  learned  how  to  moderate  it  and  to  hold 
it  steady!  The  woman  at  least  knows  where 
it  is  to  be  found,  should  she  wish  to  avail  her 
self  of  it.  But  what  \vould  be  the  state  of  a 
man  in  his  need  of  his  spouse's  penumbra? 
He  would  be  out  of  breath  with  running  to 
keep  up  with  the  penumbra  or  to  find  where 
it  was  for  the  time  being ! 

I  have  seen  some  of  these  husbands  who 
live — or  have  gradually  died  out — in  the 
shadow  of  their  wives;  they  are  nature's  sub 
dued  farewell  to  men  and  gentlemen. 


62        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

DIARY   OF    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

June  16. 

A  remarkable  thing  has  lately  happened  to 
me. 

One  of  my  Kentucky  novels,  upon  being 
republished  in  London  some  months  ago, 
fell  into  the  hands  of  a  sympathetic  reviewer. 
This  critic's  praise  later  made  its  way  to  the 
stately  library  of  Edward  Blackthorne.  What 
especially  induced  the  latter  to  read  the  book, 
I  infer,  were  lines  quoted  by  the  reviewer 
from  my  description  of  a  woodland  scene  with 
ferns  in  it:  the  mighty  novelist,  as  it  happens, 
is  himself  interested  in  ferns.  He  conse 
quently  wrote  to  some  other  English  authors 
and  critics,  calling  attention  to  my  work,  and 
he  sent  a  letter  to  me,  asking  for  some  ferns 
for  his  garden. 

This  recognition  in  England  hilariously 
affected  my  friends  over  here.  Tilly,  whose 
mind  suggests  to  me  a  delicately  poised  pair 
of  golden  balances  for  weighing  delight  against 
delight  (always  her  most  vital  affair),  when 
this  honour  for  me  fell  into  the  scales,  found 
them  inclined  in  my  favour.  If  it  be  true,  as 
I  have  often  thought,  that  she  has  long  been 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        63 

holding  on  to  me  merely  until  she  could  take 
sure  hold  of  someone  else  of  more  splendid 
worldly  consequence,  she  suddenly  at  least 
tightened  her  temporary  grasp.  Polly,  good, 
solid  Polly,  wholesome  and  dependable  as  a 
well-browned  whole-wheat  baker's  loaf  weigh 
ing  a  hundred  and  sixty  pounds,  when  she 
heard  of  it,  gave  me  a  Bohemian  supper  in 
her  Franklin  Flat  parlour,  inviting  only  a 
few  undersized  people,  inasmuch  as  she  and 
Ben,  the  chief  personages  of  the  entertain 
ment,  took  up  most  of  the  room.  We  were 
so  packed  in,  that  literally  it  was  a  night  in 
Bohemia  aux  sardines. 

Since  the  good  news  from  England  came 
over,  Ben,  with  his  big,  round,  clean-shaven, 
ruddy  face  and  short,  reddish  curly  hair, 
which  makes  him  look  like  a  thirty-five-year- 
old  Bacchus  who  had  never  drunk  a  drop — 
even  Ben  has  beamed  on  me  like  a  mellower 
orb.  He  is  as  ashamed  as  ever  of  my  books, 
but  is  beginning  to  feel  proud  that  so  many 
more  people  are  being  fooled  by  them. 
Several  times  lately  I  have  caught  his  eyes 
resting  on  me  with  an  expression  of  affection 
ate  doubt  as  to  whether  after  all  he  might  be 
mistaken  in  not  having  thought  more  of  me. 


64       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

But  he  dies  hard.  My  publisher,  who  is  a 
human  refrigerator  containing  a  mental  ther 
mometer,  which  rises  or  falls  toward  like  or 
dislike  over  a  background  for  book-sales,  got 
wind  of  the  matter  and  promptly  invited  me 
to  one  of  his  thermometric  club-lunches — 
always  an  occasion  for  acute  gastritis. 

Rumour  of  my  fame  has  permeated  my  club, 
where,  of  course,  the  leading  English  reviews 
are  kept  on  file.  Some  of  the  members  must 
have  seen  the  favourable  criticisms.  One 
night  I  became  aware  as  I  passed  through  the 
rooms  that  club  heroes  seated  here  and  there 
threw  glances  of  fresh  interest  toward  me  and 
exchanged  auspicious  words.  The  president — 
who  for  so  long  a  time  has  styled  himself  the 
Nestor  of  the  club  that  he  now  believes  it  is 
the  members  who  do  this,  the  garrulous  old 
president,  whose  weaknesses  have  made  holes 
in  him  through  which  his  virtues  sometimes 
leak  out  and  get  away,  met  me  under  the 
main  chandelier  and  congratulated  me  in 
tones  so  intentionally  audible  that  they  vio 
lated  the  rules  but  were  not  punishable  under 
his  personal  privileges. 

There  was  a  sinister  incident:  two  members 
whom  Ben  and  I  wish  to  kick  because  they 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        65 

have  had  the  audacity  to  make  the  acquaint 
ance  of  Tilly  and  Polly,  and  whom  we  despise 
also  because  they  are  fashionable  charlatans 
in  their  profession — these  two  with  dark  looks 
saw  the  president  congratulate  me. 

More  good  fortune  yet  to  come!  The  ferns 
which  I  am  sending  Mr.  Blackthorne  will 
soon  be  growing  in  his  garden.  The  illus 
trious  man  has  many  visitors;  he  leads  them, 
if  he  likes,  to  his  fern  bank.  "These,"  he  will 
some  day  say,  "came  from  Christine  Nilsson. 
These  are  from  Barbizon  in  memory  of  Corot. 
These  were  sent  me  by  Turgenieff.  And 
these,"  he  will  add,  turning  to  his  guests, 
"these  came  from  a  young  American  novelist, 
a  Kentuckian,  whose  work  I  greatly  respect: 
you  must  read  his  books."  The  guests  sepa 
rate  to  their  homes  to  pursue  the  subject. 
Spreading  fame — may  it  spread!  Last  of  all, 
the  stirring  effect  of  this  on  me,  who  now  run 
toward  glory  as  Anacreon  said  Cupid  ran 
toward  Venus — with  both  feet  and  wings. 

The  ironic  fact  about  all  this  commotion 
affecting  so  many  solid,  substantial  people — 
the  ironic  fact  is  this: 

There  was  no  woodland  scene  and  there  were 
no  ferns. 


66       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Here  I  reach  the  curious  part  of  my 
story. 

When  I  was  a  country  lad  of  some  seven 
teen  years  in  Kentucky,  one  August  afternoon 
I  was  on  my  way  home  from  a  tramp  of 
several  miles.  My  course  lay  through  patches 
of  woods — last  scant  vestiges  of  the  primeval 
forest — and  through  fields  garnered  of  summer 
grain  or  green  with  the  crops  of  coming 
autumn.  Now  and  then  I  climbed  a  fence 
and  crossed  an  old  woods-pasture  where  stock 
grazed. 

The  August  sky  was  clear  and  the  sun  beat 
down  with  terrific  heat.  I  had  been  walking 
for  hours  and  parching  thirst  came  upon  me. 

This  led  me  to  remember  how  once  these 
rich  uplands  had  been  the  vast  rolling  forest 
that  stretched  from  far-off  eastern  mountains 
to  far-off  western  rivers,  and  how  under  its 
shade,  out  of  the  rock,  everywhere  bubbled 
crystal  springs.  A  land  of  swift  forest  streams 
diamond  bright,  drinking  places  of  the  bold 
game. 

The  sun  beat  down  on  me  in  the  treeless 
open  field.  My  feet  struck  into  a  path.  It, 
too,  became  a  reminder:  it  had  once  been  a 
trail  of  the  wild  animals  of  that  verdurous 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        67 

wilderness.  I  followed  its  windings — a  sort  of 
gully — down  a  long,  gentle  slope.  The  wind 
ings  had  no  meaning  now:  the  path  could 
better  have  been  straight;  it  was  devious  be 
cause  the  feet  that  first  marked  it  off  had 
threaded  their  way  crookedly  hither  and 
thither  past  the  thick-set  trees. 

I  reached  the  spring — a  dry  spot  under  the 
hot  sun;  no  tree  overshadowing  it,  no  vegeta 
tion  around  it,  not  a  blade  of  grass;  only  dust 
in  which  were  footprints  of  the  stock  which 
could  not  break  the  habit  of  coming  to  it  but 
quenched  their  thirst  elsewhere.  The  bulged 
front  of  some  limestone  rock  showed  where 
the  ancient  mouth  of  the  spring  had  been. 
Enough  moisture  still  trickled  forth  to  wet  a 
few  clods.  Hovering  over  these,  rising  and 
sinking,  a  little  quivering  jet  of  gold,  a  flock 
of  butterflies.  The  grey  stalk  of  a  single  dead 
weed  projected  across  the  choked  orifice  of 
the  fountain  and  one  long,  brown  grasshopper 
— spirit  of  summer  dryness — had  crawled  out 
to  the  edge  and  sat  motionless. 

A  few  yards  away  a  young  sycamore  had 
sprung  up  from  some  wind-carried  seed.  Its 
grey-green  leaves  threw  a  thin  scarred  shadow 
on  the  dry  grass  and  I  went  over  and  lay 


68       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

down  under  it  to  rest — my  eyes  fixed  on  the 
forest  ruin. 

Years  followed  with  their  changes.  I  being 
in  New  York  with  my  heart  set  on  building 
whatever  share  I  could  of  American  literature 
upon  Kentucky  foundations,  I  at  work  on  a 
novel,  remembered  that  hot  August  after 
noon,  the  dry  spring,  and  in  imagination  re 
stored  the  scene  as  it  had  been  in  the  Ken 
tucky  of  the  pioneers. 

I  now  await  with  eagerness  all  further 
felicities  that  may  originate  in  a  woodland 
scene  that  did  not  exist.  What  else  will  grow 
for  me  out  of  ferns  that  never  grew? 


PART  SECOND 


EDWARD    BLACKTHORNE    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England, 
May  J,  jp/J. 

DEAR  SIR: 

It  is  the  first  of  the  faithful  leafy  May 
again.  I  sit  at  my  windows  as  on  this  day  a 
year  ago  and  look  out  with  thankfulness  upon 
what  a  man  may  call  the  honour  of  the  vege 
table  world. 

A  year  ago  to-day  I,  misled  by  a  book  of 
yours  or  by  some  books — for  I  believe  I  read 
more  than  one  of  them — I,  betrayed  by  the 
phrase  that  when  we  touch  a  book  we  touch 
a  man,  overstepped  the  boundaries  of  caution 
as  to  having  any  dealings  with  glib,  plausible 
strangers  and  wrote  you  a  letter.  I  made  a 
request  of  you  in  that  letter.  I  thought  the 
request  bore  with  it  a  suitable  reward:  that 
I  should  be  grateful  if  you  would  undertake 
to  have  some  ferns  sent  to  me  for  my  col 
lection. 

69 


70       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Your  sleek  reply  led  me  still  further  astray 
and  I  wrote  again.  I  drew  my  English  cloak 
from  my  shoulders  and  spread  it  on  the  ground 
for  you  to  step  on.  I  threw  open  to  you  the 
doors  of  my  hospitality,  good-fellowship. 

That  was  last  May.  Now  it  is  May  again. 
And  now  I  know  to  a  certainty  what  for 
months  I  have  been  coming  to  realise  always 
with  deeper  shame:  that  you  gave  me  your 
word  and  did  not  keep  your  word;  doubtless 
never  meant  to  keep  it. 

Why,  then,  write  you  about  this  act  of  dis 
honour  now?  How  justify  a  letter  to  a  man 
I  feel  obliged  to  describe  as  I  describe  you? 

The  reason  is  this,  if  you  can  appreciate 
such  a  reason.  My  nature  refuses  to  let  go  a 
half-done  deed.  I  remain  annoyed  by  an 
abandoned,  a  violated,  bond.  Once  in  a  wood 
I  came  upon  a  partly  chopped-down  tree,  and 
I  must  needs  go  far  and  fetch  an  axe  and 
finish  the  job.  What  I  have  begun  to  build  I 
must  build  at  till  the  pattern  is  wrought  out. 
Otherwise  I  should  weaken,  soften,  lose  the 
stamina  of  resolution.  The  upright  moral  skel 
eton  within  me  would  decay  and  crumble  and 
I  should  sink  down  and  flop  like  a  human  frog. 
&  Since,  then,  you  dropped  the  matter  in 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        71 

your  way — without  so  much  as  a  thought  of 
a  man's  obligation  to  himself — I  dismiss  it  in 
my  way — with  the  few  words  necessary  to 
enable  me  to  rid  my  mind  of  it  and  of  such  a 
character. 

I  wish  merely  to  say,  then,  that  I  despise 
as  I  despise  nothing  else  the  ragged  edge  of  a 
man's  behaviour.  I  put  your  conduct  before 
you  in  this  way:  do  you  happen  to  know  of  a 
common  cabbage  in  anybody's  truck  patch? 
Observe  that  not  even  a  common  cabbage 
starts  out  to  do  a  thing  and  fails  to  do  it  if  it 
can.  You  must  have  some  kind  of  perception 
of  an  oak  tree.  Think  what  would  become  of 
human  beings  in  houses  if  builders  were  de 
ceived  as  to  the  trusty  fibre  of  sound  oak? 
Do  you  ever  see  a  grape-vine?  Consider  how 
it  takes  hold  and  will  not  be  shaken  loose  by 
the  capricious  compelling  winds.  In  your 
country  have  you  the  plover?  Think^what 
would  be  the  plover's  fate,  if  it  did  not  steer 
straight  through  time  and  space  to  a  distant 
shore.  Why,  some  day  pick  up  merely  a 
piece  of  common  quartz.  Study  its  powers 
of  crystallisation.  And  reflect  that  a  man 
ranks  high  or  low  in  the  scale  of  character 
according  to  his  possession  or  his  lack  of  the 


72        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

powers  of  crystallisation.  If  the  forces  of  his 
mind  can  assume  fixity  around  an  idea,  if 
they  can  adjust  themselves  unalterably  about 
a  plan,  expect  something  of  him.  If  they  run 
through  his  hours  like  water,  if  memory  is 
a  millstream,  if  remembrance  floats  forever 
away,  expect  nothing. 

Simple,  primitive  folk  long  ago  interpreted 
for  themselves  the  characters  of  familiar 
plants  about  them.  Do  you  know  what  to 
them  the  fern  stood  for?  The  fern  stood  for 
Fidelity.  Those  true,  constant  souls  would 
have  said  that  you  had  been  unfaithful  even 
with  nature's  emblems  of  Fidelity. 

The  English  sky  is  clear  to-day.    The  sun 
light  falls  in  a  white  radiance  on  my  plants. 
I  sit  at  my  windows  with  my  grateful  eyes  on 
honest  out-of-doors.    There  is  a  shadow  on  a  i 
certain  spot  in  the  garden;  I  dislike  to  look 
at  it.    There  is  a  shadow  on  the  place  where 
your  books  once  stood  on  my  library  shelves,  i 
Your  specious  books! — your  cleverly  manu 
factured    books! — but    there    are    successful 
scamps  in  every  profession. 

I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        73 

BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO    EDWARD    BLACKTHORNS 

Cathedral  Heights, 
May  JO,  IQII. 
DEAR  SIR: 

I  wish  to  inform  you  that  I  have  just  re 
ceived  from  you  a  letter  in  which  you  attack 
my  character.  I  wish  in  reply  further  to  in 
form  you  that  I  have  never  felt  called  upon 
to  defend  my  character.  Nor  will  I,  even 
with  this  letter  of  yours  as  evidence,  attack 
your  character. 
I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO    BEN    DOOLITTLE 

May  Jj,  IQII. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  ask  your  attention  to  the  enclosed  letter 
from  Mr.  Edward  Blackthorne.  By  way  of 
contrast  and  also  of  reminder,  lest  you  may 
have  forgotten,  I  send  you  two  other  letters 
received  from  him  last  year.  I  shared  with 
you  at  the  time  the  agreeable  purport  of  these 


74       THE  EMBLEiMS  OF  FIDELITY 

earlier  letters.  This  last  letter  came  three 
days  ago  and  for  three  days  I  have  been  try 
ing  to  quiet  down  sufficiently  even  to  write 
to  you  about  it.  At  last  I  am  able  to  do  so. 

You  will  see  that  Mr.  Blackthorne  has 
never  received  the  ferns.  Then  where  have 
they  been  all  this  time  ?  I  took  it  for  granted 
that  they  had  been  shipped.  The  order  was 
last  spring  placed  with  the  Louisville  firm 
recommended  by  you.  They  guaranteed  the 
execution  of  the  order.  I  forwarded  to  them 
my  cheque.  They  cashed  my  cheque.  The 
voucher  was  duly  returned  to  me  cancelled 
through  my  bank.  I  could  not  suppose  they 
would  take  my  cheque  unless  they  had 
shipped  the  plants.  They  even  wrote  me 
again  in  the  Autumn  of  their  own  accord, 
stating  that  the  ferns  were  about  to  be  sent 
on — Autumn  being  the  most  favourable  sea 
son.  Then  where  are  the  ferns? 

I  felt  so  sure  of  their  having  reached  Mr. 
Blackthorne  that  I  harboured  a  certain  griev 
ance  and  confess  that  I  tried  to  make  generous 
allowance  for  him  as  a  genius  in  his  never 
having  acknowledged  their  arrival. 

I  have  demanded  of  Phillips  &  Faulds  an 
immediate  explanation.  As  soon  as  they  reply 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        75 

I  shall  let  you  hear  further.  The  fault  may 
be  with  them;  in  the  slipshod  Southern  way 
they  may  have  been  negligent.  My  cheque 
may  even  have  gone  as  a  bridal  present  to 
some  junior  member  of  the  firm  or  to  help 
pay  the  funeral  expenses  of  the  senior  member. 

There  is  trouble  somewhere  behind  and  I 
think  there  is  trouble  ahead. 

Premonitions  are  for  nervous  or  over- 
sanguine  ladies;  but  if  some  lady  will  kindly 
lend  me  one  of  her  premonitions,  I  shall  admit 
that  I  have  it  and  on  the  strength  of  it — or 
the  weakness — declare  my  belief  that  the 
mystery  of  the  ferns  is  going  to  uncover  some 
curious  and  funny  things. 

As  to  the  rest  of  Air.  Blackthorne's  letter: 
after  these  days  of  turbulence,  I  have  come  to 
see  my  way  clear  to  interpret  it  thus:  a  great 
man,  holding  a  great  place  in  the  world, 
offered  his  best  to  a  stranger  and  the  stranger, 
as  the  great  man  believes,  turned  his  back  on 
it.  That  is  the  grievance,  the  insult.  If 
anything  could  be  worse,  it  is  my  seeming  dis 
courtesy  to  Mrs.  Blackthorne,  since  the  in 
vitation  came  also  from  her.  In  a  word,  here 
is  a  genius  who  strove  to  advance  my  work 
and  me,  and  he  feels  himself  outraged  in  his 


76       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

kindness,  his  hospitality,  his  friendship  and 
his  family — in  all  his  best. 

But  of  course  that  is  the  hardest  of  all 
human  things  to  stand.  Men  who  have 
treated  each  other  but  fairly  well  or  even 
badly  in  ordinary  matters  often  in  time  be 
come  friends.  But  who  of  us  ever  forgives 
the  person  that  slights  our  best?  Out  of  a 
rebuff  like  that  arises  such  life-long  unforgive- 
ness,  estrangement,  hatred,  that  Holy  Writ 
itself  doubtless  for  this  very  reason  took  pains 
to  issue  its  warning — no  pearls  before  swine! 
And  perhaps  of  all  known  pearls  a  great  native 
British  pearl  is  the  most  prized  by  its  British 
possessor! 

The  reaction,  then,  from  Mr.  Blackthorne's 
best  has  been  his  worst:  if  I  did  not  merit  his 
best,  I  deserve  his  worst;  hence  his  last  letter. 
God  have  mercy  on  the  man  who  deserved 
that  letter!  You  will  have  observed  that  his 
leading  trait  as  revealed  in  all  his  letters  is 
enormous  self-love.  That's  because  he  is  a 
genius.  Genius  has  to  have  enormous  self- 
love.  Beware  the  person  who  has  none! 
Without  self-love  no  one  ever  wins  any  other's 
love. 

Thus  the  mighty  English  archer  with  his 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        77 

mighty  bow  shot  his  mighty  arrow — but  at 
an  innocent  person. 

Still  the  arrow  of  this  letter,  though  it 
misses  me,  kills  my  plans.  The  first  trouble 
will  be  Tilly.  Our  marriage  had  been  finally 
fixed  for  June,  and  our  plans  embraced  a 
wedding  journey  to  England  and  the  accept 
ance  of  the  invitation  of  the  Blackthornes. 
The  prospect  of  this  wonderful  English  sum 
mer — I  might  as  well  admit  it — was  one  thing 
that  finally  steadied  all  her  wavering  as  to 
marriage. 

Now  the  disappointment:  no  Blackthornes, 
no  English  celebrities  to  greet  us  as  American 
celebrities,  no  courtesies  from  critics,  no  lawns, 
no  tea  nor  toast  nor  being  toasted.  Merely 
two  unknown,  impoverished  young  Yankee 
tourists,  trying  to  get  out  of  chilly  England 
what  can  be  gotten  by  anybody  with  a  few, 
a  very  few,  dollars. 

But  Tilly  dreads  disappointment  as  she 
dreads  disease.  To  her  disappointment  is  a 
disease  in  the  character  of  the  person  who  in 
flicts  the  disappointment.  Once  I  tried  to 
get  you  to  read  one  of  Balzac's  masterpieces, 
The  Magic  Skin.  I  told  you  enough  about  it 
to  enable  you  to  understand  what  I  now  say: 


78        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

that  ever  since  I  became  engaged  to  Tilly  I 
have  been  to  her  as  a  magic  skin  which,  as 
she  cautiously  watches  it,  has  always  shrunk 
a  little  whenever  I  have  encountered  a  defeat 
or  brought  her  a  disappointment.  No  later 
success,  on  the  contrary,  ever  re-expands  the 
shrunken  skin:  it  remains  shrunken  where 
each  latest  disappointment  has  left  it. 

Now  when  I  tell  her  of  my  downfall  and  the 
collapse  of  the  gorgeous  summer  plans ! 

BEVERLEY 
(the  Expanding  Scamp  and  the 

Shrinking  Skin). 


BEN    DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May 


DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

I  have  duly  pondered  the  letters  you  send. 

"Fie,  fee,  fo,  fum, 
I  smell  the  blood  of  an  Englishman!" 

If  you  do  not  mind,  I  shall  keep  these  docu 
ments  from  him  in  my  possession.  And  sup 
pose  you  send  me  all  later  letters,  whether 
from  him  or  from  anyone  else,  that  bear  on 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        79 

this  matter.  It  begins  to  grow  interesting 
and  I  believe  it  will  bear  watching.  Make  me, 
then,  as  your  lawyer,  the  custodian  of  all  per 
tinent  and  impertinent  papers.  They  can  go 
into  the  locker  where  I  keep  your  immortal 
but  impecunious  Will.  Some  day  I  might 
have  to  appear  in  court,  I  with  my  shovel  and 
five  senses  and  no  imagination,  to  plead  une 
cause  celebre  (a  little  more  of  my  scant  in 
timate  French). 

The  explanation  I  give  of  this  gratuitously 
insulting  letter  is  that  at  last  you  have  run 
into  a  hostile  human  imagination  in  the  per 
son  of  an  old  literary  polecat,  an  aged  book- 
skunk.  Of  course  if  I  could  decorate  my  style 
after  the  manner  of  your  highly  creative  gen 
tlemen,  I  might  say  that  you  had  unwarily 
crossed  the  nocturnal  path  of  his  touchy 
moonlit  mephitic  highness. 

I  am  not  surprised,  of  course,  that  this 
letter  has  caused  you  to  think  still  more 
highly  of  its  writer.  I  tell  you  that  is  your 
profession — to  tinker — to  turn  reality  into 
something  better  than  reality. 

Some  day  I  expect  to  see  you  emerge  from 
your  shop  with  a  fish  story.  Intending  buyers 
will  find  that  you  have  entered  deeply  into 


8o        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

the  ideals  and  difficulties  of  the  man-eating 
shark:  how  he  could  not  swim  freely  for 
whales  in  his  track  and  could  not  breathe 
freely  for  minnows  in  his  mouth;  how  he  got 
pinched  from  behind  by  the  malice  of  the 
lobster  and  got  shocked  on  each  side  by  the 
eccentricities  of  the  eel.  The  other  fish  did 
not  appreciate  him  and  he  grew  embittered — 
and  then  only  began  to  bite.  You  will  make 
over  the  actual  shark  and  exhibit  him  to  your 
reader  as  the  ideal  shark — a  kind  of  beloved 
disciple  of  the  sea,  the  St.  John  of  fish. 

Anything  imaginative  that  you  might  make 
out  of  a  shark  would  be  a  minor  achievement 
compared  with  what  you  have  done  for  this 
Englishman.  Might  the  day  come,  the  aveng 
ing  day,  when  Benjamin  Doolittle  could  get 
a  chance  to  write  him  just  one  letter!  May 
the  god  of  battles  somehow  bring  about  a 
meeting  between  the  middle-aged  land-turtle 
and  the  aged  skunk!  On  that  field  of  Mars 
somebody's  fur  will  have  to  fly  and  it  will 
not  be  the  turtle's,  for  he  hasn't  any. 

You  speak  of  a  trouble  that  looms  up  in 
your  love  affair:  let  it  loom.  The  nearer  it 
looms,  the  better  for  you.  I  have  repeatedly 
warned  you  that  you  have  bound  your  life 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        81 

and  happiness  to  the  wrong  person,  and  the 
person  is  constantly  becoming  worse.  De 
tach  your  apparatus  of  dreams  at  last  from 
her.  Take  off  your  glorious  rainbow  world- 
goggles  and  see  the  truth  before  it  is  too  late. 
Do  not  fail,  unless  you  object,  to  send  me 
all  letters  incoming  about  the  ferns — those 
now  celebrated  bushes. 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 


PHILLIPS    &    FAULDS    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May  J 


DEAR  SIR: 

We  acknowledge  receipt  of  your  letter  of 
May  10  relative  to  an  order  for  ferns. 

It  is  decidedly  rough.  The  senior  member 
of  our  firm  who  formerly  had  charge  of  this 
branch  of  our  business  has  been  seriously  ill 
for  several  months,  and  it  was  only  after  we 
had  communicated  with  him  at  home  in  bed 
that  we  were  able  to  extract  from  him  any 
thing  at  all  concerning  your  esteemed  order. 

He  informs  us  that  he  turned  the  order 
over  to  Messrs.  Burns  &  Bruce,  native  fern 


82        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

collectors  of  Dunkirk,  Term.,  who  wrote  that 
they  would  gather  the  ferns  and  forward  them 
to  the  designated  address.  He  likewise  in 
forms  us  that  inasmuch  as  the  firm  of  Burns 
&  Bruce,  as  we  know  only  too  well,  has  long 
been  indebted  to  this  firm  for  a  considerable 
amount,  he  calculated  that  they  would  will 
ingly  ship  the  ferns  in  partial  liquidation  of 
our  old  claims. 

It  seems,  as  he  tells  us,  that  they  did 
actually  gather  the  ferns  and  get  them  ready 
for  shipment,  but  at  the  last  minute  changed 
their  mind  and  called  on  our  firm  for  pay 
ment.  There  the  matter  was  unexpectedly 
dropped  owing  to  the  sudden  illness  of  the 
aforesaid  member  of  our  house,  and  we  knew 
nothing  at  all  of  what  had  transpired  until 
your  letter  led  us  to  obtain  from  him  at  his 
bedside  the  statements  above  detailed. 

An  additional  embarrassment  to  the  un 
usually  prosperous  course  of  our  business  was 
occasioned  by  the  marriage  of  a  junior  member 
of  the  firm  and  his  consequent  absence  for  a 
considerable  time,  which  resulted  in  an  aug 
mentation  of  the  expenses  of  our  establish 
ment  and  an  unfortunate  diminution  of  our 
profits. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        83 

In  view  of  the  illness  of  the  senior  member 
of  our  house  and  in  view  of  the  marriage  of  a 
junior  member  and  in  view  of  the  losses  and 
expenses  consequent  thereon,  and  in  view  of 
the  subsequent  withdrawal  of  both  from 
active  participation  in  the  conduct  of  the 
affairs  of  our  firm,  and  in  view  also  of  a  dis 
agreement  which  arose  between  both  members 
and  the  other  members  as  to  the  financial 
basis  of  a  settlement  on  which  the  withdrawal 
could  take  place,  our  affairs  have  of  necessity 
been  thrown  into  court  in  litigation  and  are 
still  in  litigation  up  to  this  date. 

Regretting  that  you  should  have  been 
seemingly  inconvenienced  in  the  slightest  de 
gree  by  the  apparent  neglect  of  a  former 
member  of  our  firm,  we  desire  to  add  that  as 
soon  as  matters  can  be  taken  out  of  court  our 
firm  will  be  reorganised  and  that  we  shall 
continue  to  give,  as  heretofore,  the  most 
scrupulous  attention  to  all  orders  received. 

But  we  repeat  that  your  letter  is  pretty 
rough. 

Very  truly  yours, 

PHILLIPS  &  FAULDS. 


84       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

BURNS    &    BRUCE    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Dunkirk,  Tenn., 
May  20,  IQII. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  letter  to  hand.  Phillips  &  Faulds 
gave  us  the  order  for  the  ferns.  Owing  to 
extreme  drought  last  Fall  the  ferns  withered 
earlier  than  usual  and  it  was  unsafe  to  ship 
at  that  time;  in  the  Winter  the  weather  was 
so  severe  that  even  in  February  we  were 
unable  to  make  any  digging,  as  the  frost  had 
not  disappeared.  When  at  last  we  got  the 
ferns  ready,  we  called  on  them  for  payment 
and  they  wouldn't  pay.  Phillips  &  Faulds 
are  not  good  paying  bills  and  we  could  not 
put  ourselves  to  expense  filling  their  new 
order  for  ferns,  not  wishing  to  take  more 
risk,  old,  old  accounts  against  them  unpaid, 
and  could  not  afford  to  ship  more,  proved 
very  unsatisfactory  and  had  to  drop  them 
entirely. 

Are  already  out  of  pocket  the  cost  of  the 
ferns,  worthless  to  us  when  Phillips  &  Faulds 
dodged  and  wouldn't  pay,  pretending  we 
owed  them  because  they  won't  pay  their  bills. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        85 

If  you  do  not  wish  to  have  any  further 
dealings  with  them  you  might  write  to  Noah 
Chamberlain  at  Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
just  over  the  state  line,  not  far  from  here,  an 
authority  on  American  ferns.  We  have 
sometimes  collected  rare  ferns  for  him  to 
ship  to  England  and  other  European  coun 
tries.  Vouch  for  him  as  an  honest  man. 
Always  paid  his  bills,  old  accounts  against 
Phillips  &  Faulds  unpaid;  dropped  them 
entirely. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BURNS  &  BRUCE. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO    BEN    DOOLITTLE 

May  24. 
DEAR  BEN: 

You  requested  me  to  send  you  for  possible 
future  reference  all  incoming  letters  upon  the 
subject  of  the  ferns.  Here  are  two  more  that 
have  just  fluttered  down  from  the  blue 
heaven  of  the  unexpected  or  been  thrust  up 
from  the  lower  regions  through  a  crack  in 
the  earth's  surface. 

Spare  a  few  minutes  to  admire  the  rippling 


86       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

eloquence  of  Messrs.  Phillips  &  Faulds.  When 
the  eloquence  has  ceased  to  ripple  and  settles 
down  to  stay,  their  letter  has  the  cold  purity 
of  a  whitewashed  rotten  Kentucky  fence. 
They  and  another  firm  of  florists  have  a  law 
suit  as  to  which  owes  the  other,  and  they 
meantime  compel  me,  an  innocent  bystander, 
to  deliver  to  them  my  pocketbook. 

Will  you  please  immediately  bring  suit 
against  Phillips  &  Faulds  on  behalf  of  my 
valuable  twenty-five  dollars  and  invaluable 
indignation?  Bring  suit  against  and  bring 
your  boot  against  them  if  you  can.  My 
ducats!  Have  my  ducats  out  of  them  or 
their  peace  by  day  and  night. 

The  other  letter  seems  of  an  unhewn 
probity  that  wins  my  confidence.  That  is  to 
say,  Burns  &  Bruce,  whoever  they  are,  assure 
me  that  I  ought  to  believe,  and  with  all  my 
heart  I  do  now  believe,  in  the  existence,  just 
over  the  Tennessee  state  line,  of  a  florist  of 
good  character  and  a  business  head.  Thus  I 
now  press  on  over  the  Tennessee  state  line 
into  North  Carolina. 

For  the  ferns  must  be  sent  to  Mr.  Black- 
thorne;  more  than  ever  they  must  go  to  him 
now.  Not  the  entire  British  army  drawn  up 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        87 

on  the  white  cliffs  of  Dover  could  keep  me 
from  landing  them  on  the  British  Isle.  Even 
if  I  had  to  cross  over  to  England,  travel  to 
his  home,  put  the  ferns  down  before  him  or 
throw  them  at  his  head  and  walk  out  of  his 
house  without  a  word. 

I  told  you  I  had  a  borrowed  premonition 
that  there  would  be  trouble  ahead:  now  it  is 
not  a  premonition,  it  is  my  belief  and  terror. 
I  have  grown  to  stand  in  dread  of  all  florists, 
and  I  approach  this  third  one  with  my  hat  in 
my  hand  (also  with  my  other  hand  on  my 
pocketbook). 

BEVERLEY. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO    NOAH    CHAMBERLAIN 

Cathedral  Heights,  New  York, 

May  25,  jpjj. 
DEAR  SIR: 

You  have  been  recommended  to  me  by 
Messrs.  Burns  &  Bruce,  of  Dunkirk,  Ten 
nessee,  as  a  nurseryman  who  can  be  relied 
upon  to  keep  his  word  and  to  carry  out  his 
business  obligations. 


88        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Accepting  at  its  face  value  their  high  tes 
timonial  as  to  your  trustworthiness,  I  desire 
to  place  with  you  the  following  order: 

Messrs.  Burns  &  Bruce,  acting  upon  my 
request,  have  forwarded  to  you  a  list  of  rare 
Kentucky  ferns.  I  desire  you  to  collect  these 
ferns  and  to  ship  them  to  Mr.  Edward  Black- 
thorne,  Esq.,  King  Alfred's  Wood,  Warwick 
shire,  England.  As  a  guaranty  of  good  faith 
on  my  part,  I  enclose  in  payment  my  check 
for  twenty-five  dollars.  Will  you  have  the 
kindness  to  let  me  know  at  once  whether  you 
will  undertake  this  commission  and  give  it 
the  strictest  attention? 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


NOAH    CHAMBERLAIN   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
May  29. 
SIR: 

I  have  received  your  letter  with  your  check 
in  it. 

You  are  the  first  person  that  ever  offered 
me  money  as  a  florist.  I  am  not  a  florist,  if 
I  must  take  time  to  inform  you.  I  had  sup- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        89 

posed  it  to  be  generally  known  throughout 
the  United  States  and  in  Europe  that  I  am 
professor  of  botany  in  this  college,  and  have 
been  for  the  past  fifteen  years.  If  Burns  & 
Bruce  really  told  you  I  am  a  florist — and  I 
doubt  it — they  must  be  greater  ignoramuses 
than  I  took  them  to  be.  I  always  knew  that 
they  did  not  have  much  sense,  but  I  thought 
they  had  a  little.  It  is  true  that  they  have 
at  different  times  gathered  specimens  of  ferns 
for  me,  and  more  than  once  have  shipped 
them  to  Europe.  But  I  never  imagined  they 
were  fools  enough  to  think  this  made  me  a 
florist.  My  collection  of  ferns  embraces  dried 
specimens  for  study  in  my  classrooms  and 
specimens  growing  on  the  college  grounds. 
The  ferns  I  have  shipped  to  Europe  have 
been  sent  to  friends  and  correspondents.  The 
President  of  the  Royal  Botanical  Society  of 
Great  Britain  is  an  old  friend  of  mine.  I 
have  sent  him  some  and  I  have  also  sent  some 
to  friends  in  Norway  and  Sweden  and  to 
other  scientific  students  of  botany. 

It  only  shows  that  your  next-door  neigh 
bour  may  know  nothing  about  you,  especially 
if  you  are  a  little  over  your  neighbour's  head. 

My   daughter,   who   is   my   secretary,   will 


90        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

return  your  check,  but  I  thought  I  had  better 
write  and  tell  you  myself  that  I  am  not  a 
florist. 

Yours  truly, 
NOAH  CHAMBERLAIN,  A.M.,  B.S.,  Litt.D. 


CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN   TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
May  29. 
SIR: 

I  can  but  express  my  intense  indignation, 
as  Professor  Chamberlain's  only  daughter, 
that  you  should  send  a  sum  of  money  to  my 
distinguished  father  to  hire  his  services  as  a 
nurseryman.  I  had  supposed  that  my  father 
was  known  to  the  entire  intelligent  American 
public  as  an  eminent  scientist,  to  be  ranked 
with  such  men  as  Dana  and  Gray  and  Alex 
ander  von  Humboldt. 

People  of  our  means  and  social  position  in 
the  South  do  not  peddle  bulbs.  We  do  not 
reside  at  the  entrance  to  a  cemetery  and  earn 
our  bread  by  making  funeral  wreaths  and 
crosses. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        91 

You  must  be  some  kind  of  nonentity. 
Your  cheque  is  pinned  to  this  letter. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    NOAH    CHAMBERLAIN 

June  3. 
DEAR  SIR: 

I  am  deeply  mortified  at  having  believed 
Messrs.  Burns  &  Bruce  to  be  well-informed 
and  truthful  Southern  gentlemen.  I  find  that 
it  is  no  longer  safe  for  me  to  believe  anybody 
— not  about  nurserymen.  I  am  not  sure  now 
that  I  should  believe  you.  You  say  you  are  a 
famous  botanist,  but  you  may  be  merely  a 
famous  liar,  known  as  such  to  various  learned 
bodies  in  Europe.  Proof  to  the  contrary  is 
necessary,  and  you  must  admit  that  your 
letter  does  not  furnish  me  with  that  proof. 

Still  I  am  going  to  believe  you  and  I  renew 
the  assurance  of  my  mortification  that  I  have 
innocently  caused  you  the  chagrin  of  dis 
covering  that  you  are  not  so  well  known,  at 
least  in  this  country,  as  you  supposed.  I 
suffer  from  the  same  chagrin:  many  of  us  do; 
it  is  the  tie  that  binds:  blest  be  the  tie. 


92        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

I  shall  be  extremely  obliged  if  you  will 
have  the  kindness  to  return  to  me  the  list  of 
ferns  forwarded  to  you  by  Messrs.  Burns  & 
Bruce,  and  for  that  purpose  you  will  please 
to  find  enclosed  an  envelope  addressed  and 
stamped. 

I  acknowledge  the  return  of  my  cheque, 
which  occasions  me  some  surprise  and  not  a 
little  pleasure. 

Allow  me  once  more  to  regret  that  through 
my  incurable  habit  of  believing  strangers, 
believing  everybody,  I  was  misled  into  taking 
the  lower  view  of  you  as  a  florist  instead  of 
the  higher  view  as  a  botanist.  But  you  must 
admit  that  I  was  right  in  classification  and 
wrong  only  in  elevation. 

Very  truly  yours, 
BEVERLEY  SANDS,  A.B.  (merely). 


NOAH    CHAMBERLAIN   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

June  8. 
SIR: 

I  know  nothing  about   any  list  of  ferns. 
Stop  writing  to  me. 

NOAH  CHAMBERLAIN. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        93 

CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

June  8. 

SIR: 

It  is  excruciating  the  way  you  continue  to 
persecute  my  great  father.  What  is  wrong 
with  you?  What  started  you  to  begin  on  us 
in  this  way?  We  never  heard  of  you.  Would 
you  let  my  dear  father  alone? 

He  is  a  very  deep  student  and  it  is  intoler 
able  for  me  to  see  his  priceless  attention 
drawn  from  his  work  at  critical  moments 
when  he  might  be  on  the  point  of  making 
profound  discoveries.  My  father  is  a  very 
absent-minded  man,  as  great  scholars  usually 
are,  and  when  he  is  interrupted  he  may  even 
forget  what  he  has  just  been  thinking  about. 

Your  letter  was  a  very  serious  shock  to 
him,  and  after  reading  it  he  could  not  even 
drink  his  tea  at  supper  or  enjoy  his  cold  ham. 
Time  and  again  he  put  his  cup  down  and  said 
to  me  in  a  trembling  voice:  "Think  of  his 
calling  me  a  famous  liar!"  Then  he  got  up 
from  the  table  without  eating  anything  and 
left  the  room.  He  turned  at  the  door  and 
said  to  me,  with  a  confused  expression:  "I 


94       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

may,  once  in  my  life — but  he  didn't  know 
anything  about  that." 

He  shut  his  door  and  stayed  in  his  library 
all  evening,  thinking  without  nourishment. 

What  a  viper  you  are  to  call  my  great  father 
a  liar. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 

v 
•  / 

BEVERLEY    SANDS    TO    BEN    DOOLITTLE 

June  12. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  knew  I  was  in  for  It!  I  send  another  in 
stallment  of  incredible  letters  from  unbe 
lievable  people. 

In  my  wanderings  over  the  earth  after  the 
ferns  I  have  innocently  brought  my  foot 
against  an  ant-hill  of  Chamberlains.  I  called 
the  head  of  the  hill  a  florist  and  he  is  a  botan 
ist,  and  the  whole  hill  is  frantic  with  fury. 
As  far  as  heard  from,  there  are  only  two  ants 
in  the  hill,  but  the  two  make  a  lively  many 
in  their  letters.  It's  a  Southern  vendetta 
and  my  end  may  draw  nigh. 

Now,  too,  the  inevitable  quarrel  with  Tilly 
is  at  hand.  She  has  been  out  of  town  for  a 
house-party  somewhere  and  is  to  return  to- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        95 

morrow.  When  Tilly  came  to  New  York  a 
few  years  ago  she  had  not  an  acquaintance; 
now  I  marvel  at  the  world  of  people  she  knows. 
It  is  the  result  of  her  never  declining  an  in 
vitation.  Once  I  derided  her  about  this,  and 
with  her  almost  terrifying  honesty  she  avowed 
the  reason:  that  no  one  ever  knew  what  an 
acquaintanceship  might  lead  to.  This  prin 
ciple,  or  lack  of  principle,  has  led  her  far. 
And  wherever  she  goes,  she  is  welcomed  after 
wards.  It  is  her  mystery,  her  charm.  I  often 
ask  myself  what  is  her  charm.  At  least  her 
charm,  as  all  charm,  is  victory.  You  are  de 
feated  by  her,  chained  and  dragged  along. 
Of  course,  I  expect  all  this  to  be  reversed 
after  Tilly  marries  me.  Then  I  am  to  have 
my  turn — she  is  to  be  led  around,  dragged 
helpless  by  my  charm.  Magnificent  outlook! 

To-morrow  she  is  to  return,  and  I  shall 
have  to  tell  her  that  it  is  all  over — our  won 
derful  summer  in  England.  It  is  gone,  the 
whole  vision  drifts  away  like  a  gorgeous  cloud, 
carrying  with  it  the  bright  raindrops  of  her 
hopes. 

I  have  never,  by  the  way,  mentioned  to 
Tilly  this  matter  of  the  ferns.  My  first  idea 
was  to  surprise  her:  as  some  day  we  strolled 


96       THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

through  the  Blackthorne  garden  he  would 
point  to  the  Kentucky  specimens  flourishing 
there  in  honour  of  me.  I  have  always  ob 
served  that  any  unexpected  pleasure  flushes 
her  face  with  a  new  light,  with  an  effulgence 
of  fresh  beauty,  just  as  every  disappointment 
makes  her  suddenly  look  old  and  rather  ugly. 

This  was  the  first  reason.  Now  I  do  not 
intend  to  tell  her  at  all.  Disappointment  will 
bring  out  her  demand  to  know  why  she  is  dis 
appointed — naturally.  But  how  am  I  to  tell 
on  the  threshold  of  marriage  that  it  is  all  due 
to  a  misunderstanding  about  a  handful  of 
ferns!  It  would  be  ridiculous.  She  would 
never  believe  me — naturally.  She  would  in 
fer  that  I  was  keeping  back  the  real  reason, 
as  being  too  serious  to  be  told. 

Here,  then,  I  am.    But  where  am  I? 

BEVERLEY  (complete  and  final 
disappearance  of  the  Magic  Skin). 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

June  13. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

You  are  perfectly  right  not  to  tell  Tilly 
about  the  ferns.  Here  I  come  in:  there  must 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        97 

always  be  things  that  a  man  must  refuse  to 
tell  a  woman.  As  soon  as  he  tells  her  every 
thing,  she  puts  her  foot  on  his  neck.  I  have 
always  refused  even  to  tell  Polly  some  things, 
not  that  they  might  not  be  told,  but  that 
Polly  must  not  be  told  them;  not  for  the 
things'  sake,  but  for  Polly's  good — and  for  a 
man's  peaceful  control  of  his  own  life. 

For  whatever  else  a  woman  marries  in  a 
man,  one  thing  in  him  she  must  marry:  a  rock. 
Times  will  come  when  she  will  storm  and  rage 
around  that  rock;  but  the  storms  cannot  last 
forever,  and  when  they  are  over,  the  rock  will 
be  there.  By  degrees  there  will  be  less  storm. 
Polly's  very  loyalty  to  me  inspires  her  to  take 
possession  of  my  whole  life;  to  enter  into  all 
my  affairs.  I  am  to  her  a  house,  no  closet  of 
which  must  remain  locked.  Thus  there  are 
certain  closets  which  she  repeatedly  tries  to 
open.  I  can  tell  by  her  very  expression  when 
she  is  going  to  try  once  more.  Were  they 
opened,  she  would  not  find  much;  but  it  is 
much  to  be  guarded  that  she  shall  not  open 
them. 

The  matter  is  too  trivial  to  explain  to  Tilly 
as  fact  and  too  important  as  principle. 

Harbour  no  fear  that  Polly  knows  from  me 


98        THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

anything  about  the  ferns!  When  I  am  with 
Polly,  my  thoughts  are  not  on  the  grass  of 
the  fields. 

Let  me  hear  at  once  how  the  trouble  turns 
out  with  Tilly. 

I  must  not  close  without  making  a  profound 
obeisance  to  your  new  acquaintances — the 
Chamberlains. 

BEN. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  15. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

Something  extremely  disagreeable  has  come 
up  between  Beverley  and  me.  He  tells  me 
we're  not  to  go  to  England  on  our  wedding 
journey  as  anyone's  guests:  we  travel  as 
ordinary  American  tourists  unknown  to  all 
England. 

You  can  well  understand  what  this  means 
to  me :  you  have  watched  all  along  how  I  have 
pinched  on  my  small  income  to  get  ready  for 
this  beautiful  summer.  There  has  been  a 
quarrel  of  some  kind  between  Mr.  Blackthorne 
and  Beverley.  Beverley  refuses  to  tell  me 
the  nature  of  the  quarrel.  I  insisted  that  it 
was  my  right  to  know  and  he  insisted  that  it 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY        99 

is  a  man's  affair  with  another  man  and  not 
any  woman's  business.  Think  of  a  woman 
marrying  a  man  who  lays  it  down  as  a  law 
that  his  affairs  are  none  of  her  business! 

I  gave  Beverley  to  understand  that  our 
marriage  was  deferred  for  the  summer.  He 
broke  off  the  engagement. 

I  had  not  meant  to  tell  you  anything,  since 
I  am  coming  to-night.  I  have  merely  wished 
you  to  understand  how  truly  anxious  I  am  to 
see  you,  even  forgetting  your  last  letter — no, 
not  forgetting  it,  but  overlooking  it.  Remem 
ber  you  then  broke  an  appointment  with  me; 
this  time  keep  your  appointment — being  loyal! 
The  messenger  will  wait  for  your  reply,  stating 
whether  the  way  is  clear  for  me  to  come. 

TILLY. 


POLLY    BOLES   TO   TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  15. 
DEAR  TILLY: 

Dr.  Mullen  had  an  appointment  with  me 
for  to-night,  but  I  have  written  to  excuse 
myself,  and  I  shall  be  waiting  most  im 
patiently.  The  coast  will  be  clear  and  I  hope 
the  night  will  be. 


ioo      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

"The  turnip,"  as  you  call  it,  will  be  empty; 
"the  horse-radish"  and  "the  beets"  will  be 
still  the  same;  "the  wilted  sunflower"  will 
shed  its  usual  ray  on  our  heads.  No  breeze 
will  disturb  us,  for  there  will  be  no  fresh  air. 
We  shall  have  the  long  evening  to  ourselves, 
and  you  can  tell  me  just  how  it  is  that  you 
two,  not  heavy  Tilly,  not  heavy  Beverley, 
sat  on  opposite  sides  of  the  room  and  de 
clared  to  each  other: 

"I  will  not." 

"I  will  not." 

Since  I  have  broken  an  engagement  for 
you,  be  sure  not  to  let  any  later  temptation 
elsewhere  keep  you  away. 

POLLY. 

[Later  in  the  day] 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  15. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

Beverley  and  Tilly  have  had  the  long-ex 
pected  final  flare-up.  Yesterday  he  wrote, 
asking  me  to  come  up  as  soon  as  I  was  through 
with  business.  I  spent  last  night  with  him. 

We  drew  our  chairs  up  to  his  opened  win- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  Fl^EEl-TY  ; ;  icn: 

dow,  turned  out  the  lights,  got  our  cigars,  and 
with  our  feet  on  the  window-sills  and  our 
eyes  on  the  stars  across  the  sky  talked  the 
long,  quiet  hours  through. 

He  talked,  not  I.  Little  could  I  have  said 
to  him  about  the  woman  who  has  played  fast 
and  loose  with  him  while  using  him  for  her 
convenience.  He  made  it  known  at  the  out 
set  that  not  a  word  was  to  be  spoken  against 
her. 

He  just  lay  back  in  his  big  easy  cnair, 
with  his  feet  on  his  window-sill  and  his  eyes 
on  the  stars,  and  built  up  his  defence  of  Tilly. 
All  night  he  worked  to  repair  wreckage. 

As  the  grey  of  morning  crept  over  the  city 
his  work  was  well  done:  Tilly  was  restored  to 
more  than  she  had  ever  been.  Silence  fell 
upon  him  as  he  sat  there  with  his  eyes  on  the 
reddening  east;  and  it  may  be  that  he  saw 
her — now  about  to  leave  him  at  last — as  some 
white,  angelic  shape  growing  fainter  and 
fainter  as  it  vanished  in  the  flush  of  a  new 
day. 

You  know  what  I  think  of  this  Tilly-angel. 
If  there  were  any  wings  anywhere  around,  it 
was  those  of  an  aeroplane  leaving  its  hangar 
with  an  early  start  to  bring  down  some  other 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

victim:  the  angel-aeroplane  out  after  more 
prey.  I  think  we  both  know  who  the  prey 
will  be. 

The  solemn  influence  of  the  night  has 
rested  on  me.  Were  it  possible,  I  should  feel 
even  a  higher  respect  for  Beverley;  there  is 
something  in  him  that  fills  me  with  awe.  He 
suffers.  He  could  mend  Tilly  but  he  cannot 
mend  himself:  in  a  way  she  has  wrecked  him. 

Their  quarrel  brings  me  with  an  aching 
heart  closer  to  you.  I  must  come  to-night. 
The  messenger  will  wait  for  a  word  that  I 
may.  And  a  sudden  strange  chill  of  desola 
tion  as  to  life's  brittle  ties  frightens  me  into 
sending  you  some  roses. 

Your  lover  through  many  close  and  con 
stant  years, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 

[Still  later  in  the  day] 

POLLY    BOLES    TO    TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  75. 
DEAR,  DEAR,  DEAR  TILLY: 

An  incredible  thing  has  happened.  Ben 
has  just  written  that  he  wishes  to  see  me 
to-night.  Will  you,  after  all,  wait  until  to- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY       103 

morrow  evening?  My  dear,  I  have  to  ask  this 
of  you  because  there  is  something  very  par 
ticular  that  Ben  desires  to  talk  to  me  about. 

To-morrow  night,    then,   without   fail,   you 
and  I! 

POLLY  BOLES. 


POLLY     BOLES    AND     BENJAMIN     DOOLITTLE    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

[Late  at  night  of  the  same  day] 

June  15. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

We  have  talked  the  matter  over  and  send 
you  our  conjoined  congratulations  that  your 
engagement  is  broken  off  and  your  immediate 
peril  ended.  But  our  immediate  caution  is 
that  the  end  of  the  betrothal  will  not  neces 
sarily  mean  the  end  of  entanglement:  the 
tempter  will  at  once  turn  away  from  you  in 
pursuit  of  another  man.  She  will  begin  to 
weave  her  web  about  him.  But  if  possible 
she  will  still  hold  you  to  that  web  by  a  single 
thread.  Now,  more  than  ever,  you  will  need 
to  be  on  your  guard,  if  such  a  thing  is  possible 
to  such  a  nature  as  yours. 


104      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Not  until  obliged  will  she  ever  let  you  go 
completely.  She  hath  a  devil — perhaps  the 
most  famous  devil  in  all  the  world — the  love 
devil.  And  all  devils,  famous  or  not  famous, 
are  poor  quitters. 

(Signed) 

POLLY  BOLES  for  Ben  Doolittle. 
BEN  DOOLITTLE  for  Polly  Boles. 
(His  handwriting;  her  ideas 
and  language.) 


TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  DR.  MARIGOLD 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MARIGOLD: 

This  is  the  third  time  within  the  past 
several  months  that  I  have  requested  you  to 
let  me  have  your  bill  for  professional  services. 
I  shall  not  suppose  that  you  have  relied  upon 
my  willingness  to  remain  under  an  obligation 
of  this  kind;  nor  do  I  like  to  think  I  have 
counted  for  so  little  among  your  many  pa 
tients  that  you  have  not  cared  whether  I 
paid  you  or  not.  If  your  motive  has  been 
kindness,  I  must  plainly  tell  you  that  I  do 
not  desire  such  kindness;  and  if  there  has 
been  no  motive  at  all,  but  simply  indifference, 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      105 

I  must  remind  you  that  this  indifference  means 
disrespect  and  that  I  resent  it. 

The  things  you  have  indirectly  done  for 
me  in  other  ways — the  songs,  the  books  and 
magazines,  the  flowers — these  I  accept  with 
warm  responsive  hands  and  a  lavish  mind. 

And  with  words  not  yet  uttered,  perhaps 
never  to  be  uttered. 

Yours  sincerely, 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 
June  the  Seventeenth. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  DR.  MARIGOLD 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MARIGOLD  : 

I  have  your  bill  and  I  make  the  due  remit 
tance  with  all  due  thanks. 

Your  note  pleasantly  reassures  me  how 
greatly  you  are  obliged  that  I  could  put  you 
in  correspondence  with  some  Kentucky  cousins 
about  the  purchase  of  a  Kentucky  saddle- 
horse.  It  was  a  pleasure;  in  fact,  a  matter  of 
some  pride  to  do  this,  and  I  am  delighted  that 
they  could  furnish  you  a  horse  you  approve. 

While  taking  my  customary  walk  in  the 
Park  yesterday  morning,  I  had  a  chance  to 
see  you  and  your  new  mount  making  acquaint- 


io6      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

ance  with  one  another.  I  can  pay  you  no 
higher  compliment  than  to  say  that  you  ride 
like  a  Kentuckian. 

Unconsciously,  I  suppose,  it  has  become  a 
habit  of  mine  to  choose  the  footways  through 
the  Park  which  skirt  the  bridle  path,  drawn 
to  them  by  my  childhood  habit  and  girlish 
love  of  riding.  Even  to  see  from  day  to  day 
what  one  once  had  but  no  longer  has  is  to 
keep  alive  hope  that  one  may  some  day  have 
it  again. 

You  should  some  time  go  to  Kentucky  and 
ride  there.    My  cousins  will  look  to  that. 
Yours  sincerely, 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 

June  the  Eighteenth. 


TILLY    SNOWDEN    TO    DR.    MARIGOLD 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MARIGOLD: 

I  was  passing  this  morning  and  witnessed 
the  accident,  and  I  must  express  my  con 
dolences  for  what  might  have  been  and  con 
gratulations  upon  what  was. 

You  certainly  fell  well — not  unlike  a  Ken 
tuckian  ! 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      107 

I  feel  sure  that  my  cousins  could  not  have 
known  the  horse  was  tricky.  Any  horse  is 
tricky  to  the  end  of  his  days  and  the  end  of 
his  road.  He  may  not  show  any  tricks  at 
home,  but  becomes  tricky  in  new  places. 
(Can  this  be  the  reason  that  he  is  called  the 
most  human  of  beasts?) 

You  buying  a  Kentucky  horse  brings  freshly 
to  my  mind  that  of  late  you  have  expressed 
growing  interest  in  Kentucky.  More  than 
once,  also  (since  you  have  begun  to  visit  me), 
you  have  asked  me  to  tell  you  about  my  life 
there.  Frankly,  this  is  because  I  am  some 
thing  of  a  mystery  and  you  would  like  to 
have  the  mystery  cleared  up.  You  wish  to 
find  out,  without  letting  me  know  you  are 
finding  out,  whether  there  is  not  something 
wrong  about  me,  some  risk  for  you  in  visiting 
me.  That  is  because  you  have  never  known 
anybody  like  me.  I  frighten  you  because  I 
am  not  afraid  of  people,  not  afraid  of  life. 
You  are  used  to  people  who  are  afraid, 
especially  to  women  who  are  afraid.  You 
yourself  are  horribly  afraid  of  nearly  every 
thing. 

Suppose  I  do  tell  you  a  little  about  my  life, 
though  it  may  not  greatly  explain  why  I  am 


io8      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

without  fear;  still,  the  land  and  the  people 
might  mean  something;  they  ought  to  mean 
much. 

I  was  born  of  not  very  poor  and  immensely 
respectable  parents  in  a  poor  and  not  very 
respectable  county  of  Kentucky.  The  first 
thing  I  remember  about  life,  my  first  social 
consciousness,  was  the  discovery  that  I  was 
entangled  in  a  series  of  sisters:  there  were  six 
of  us.  I  was  as  nearly  as  possible  at  the 
middle  of  the  procession — with  three  older 
and  two  younger,  so  that  I  was  crowded  both 
by  what  was  before  and  by  what  was  behind. 
I  early  learned  to  fight  for  the  present — 
against  both  the  past  and  the  future — learned 
to  seize  what  I  could,  lest  it  be  seized  either 
by  hands  reaching  backward  or  by  hands 
reaching  forward.  Literally,  I  opened  my 
eyes  upon  life's  insatiate  competition  and  I 
began  to  practise  at  home  the  game  of  the 
world. 

Why  my  mother  bore  only  daughters  will 
have  to  be  referred  to  the  new  science  which 
takes  as  its  field  the  forces  and  the  mysteries 
that  are  sovereign  between  the  nuptials  and 
the  cradle.  But  the  reason,  as  openly  laughed 
about  in  the  family  when  the  family  grew  old 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      109 

enough  to  laugh,  as  laughed  about  in  the 
neighbourhood,  was  this: 

Even  before  marriage  my  father  and  my 
mother  had  waged  a  violent  discussion  about 
woman's  suffrage.  You  may  not  know  that 
in  Kentucky  from  the  first  the  cause  of  female 
suffrage  has  been  upheld  by  a  strong  minority 
of  strong  women,  a  true  pioneer  movement 
toward  the  nation's  future  now  near.  It 
seems  that  my  father,  who  was  a  brilliant 
lawyer,  always  browbeat  my  mother  in  argu 
ment,  overwhelmed  her,  crushed  her.  Un 
convinced,  in  resentful  silence,  she  quietly 
rocked  on  her  side  of  the  fireplace  and  looked 
deep  into  the  coals.  But  regularly  when  the 
time  came  she  replied  to  all  his  arguments  by 
presenting  him  with  another  suffragette! 
Throughout  her  life  she  declined  even  to 
bear  him  a  son  to  continue  the  argument! 
Her  six  daughters — she  would  gladly  have  had 
twelve  if  she  could — were  her  triumphant 
squad  for  the  armies  of  the  great  rebellion. 

Does  this  help  to  explain  me  to  you? 

What  next  I  relate  about  my.  early  life  is 
something  that  you  perhaps  have  never  given 
a  thought  to — children's  pets  and  playthings: 
it  explains  a  great  deal.  Have  you  ever 


i  io      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

thought  of  a  vital  difference  between  country 
children  and  town  children  ?  Country  children 
more  quickly  throw  away  their  dolls,  if  they 
have  them,  and  attach  their  sympathies  to 
living  objects.  A  child's  love  of  a  doll  is  at 
best  a  sham:  a  little  master-drama  of  the 
child's  imagination  trying  to  fill  two  roles — 
its  own  and  the  role  of  something  which  can 
not  respond.  But  a  child's  love  of  a  living 
creature,  which  it  chooses  as  the  object  of  its 
love  and  play  and  protection,  is  stimulating, 
healthful  and  kicking  with  reality:  because 
it  is  vitalised  by  reciprocity  in  the  playmate, 
now  affectionate  and  now  hostile,  but  always 
representing  something  intensely  alive — which 
is  the  whole  main  thing. 

We  are  just  beginning  to  find  out  that  the 
dramas  of  childhood  are  the  playgrounds  of 
life's  battlefields.  The  ones  prepare  for  the 
others.  A  nature  that  will  cling  to  a  rag  doll 
without  any  return,  will  cling  to  a  rag  husband 
without  any  return.  A  child's  loyalty  to  an 
automaton  prepares  a  woman  for  endurance 
of  an  automaton.  Dolls  have  been  the  un 
doing  and  the  death  of  many  wives. 

A  multitude  of  dolls  would  have  been  needed 
to  supply  the  six  destructive  little  girls  of  my 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      in 

mother's  household.  We  soon  broke  our 
china  tea  sets  or,  more  gladly,  smashed  one 
another's.  For  whatever  reason,  all  lifeless 
pets,  all  shams,  were  quickly  swept  out  of  the 
house  and  the  little  scattering  herd  of  us 
turned  our  restless  and  insatiate  natures  loose 
upon  life  itself.  Sooner  or  later  we  petted 
nearly  everything  on  the  farm.  My  father 
was  a  director  of  the  County  Fair,  and  I  re 
member  that  one  autumn,  about  fair-time,  we 
roped  off  a  corner  of  the  yard  and  held  a  prize 
exhibition  of  our  favourites  that  year.  They 
comprised  a  kitten,  a  duck,  a  pullet,  a  calf,  a 
lamb  and  a  puppy. 

Sooner  or  later  our  living  playthings  out 
grew  us  or  died  or  were  sold  or  made  their 
sacrificial  way  to  the  kitchen.  Were  we  dis 
consolate?  Not  a  bit.  Did  we  go  down  to 
the  branch  and  gather  there  under  an  old 
weeping  willow?  Quite  the  contrary.  Our 
hearts  thrived  on  death  and  destruction,  an 
nihilation  released  us  from  old  ties,  change 
gave  us  another  chance,  and  we  provided  sub 
stitutes  and  continued  our  devotion. 

And  I  think  this  explains  a  good  deal. 
And  these  two  experiences  of  my  childhood, 
taken  together,  explain  me  better  than  any- 


ii2      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

thing  else  I  know.  Competition  first  taught 
me  to  seize  what  I  wanted  before  anyone  else 
could  seize  it.  Natural  changes  next  taught 
me  to  be  prepared  at  any  moment  to  give 
that  up  without  vain  regret  and  to  seize 
something  else.  Thus  I  seemed  to  learn 
life's  lesson  as  I  learned  to  walk:  that  what 
you  love  will  not  last  long,  and  that  long 
love  is  possible  only  when  you  love  often. 

So  many  women  know  this;  how  few  admit 
it! 

Sincerely  yours, 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 

June  the  Nineteenth. 


TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  DR.  MARIGOLD 

MY  DEAR  DR.  MARIGOLD: 

You  sail  to-morrow.  And  to-morrow  I  go 
away  for  the  summer:  first  to  some  friends, 
then  further  away  to  other  friends,  then  still 
further  away  to  other  friends:  a  summer 
pageant  of  brilliant  changes. 

There  is  no  reason  why  I  should  write  to 
you.  Your  stateroom  will  be  filled  with 
flowers;  you  will  have  letters  and  telegrams; 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      113 

friends  will  wave  to  you  from  the  pier.  My 
letter  may  be  lost  among  the  others,  but  at 
least  it  will  have  been  written,  and  writing  it 
is  its  pleasure  to  me. 

I  was  to  go  to  England  this  summer,  was 
to  go  as  a  bride.  A  few  nights  since  I  de 
cided  not  to  go  because  I  did  not  approve  of 
the  bridegroom. 

We  marvel  at  life's  coincidences:  one  even 
ing,  not  long  ago,  while  speaking  of  your  ex 
pected  summer  in  England,  you  mentioned 
that  you  planned  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  see 
Edward  Blackthorne.  You  were  to  join  some 
American  friends  over  there  and  take  them 
with  you.  That  is  the  coincidence:  /  was  to 
visit  the  Blackthornes  this  very  summer,  not 
as  a  stranger  pilgrim,  but  as  an  invited  guest — 
with  the  groom  whom  I  have  rejected. 

It  is  like  scattering  words  before  the  obvi 
ous  to  say  that  I  wish  you  a  pleasant  summer. 
Not  a  forgetful  one.  To  aid  memory,  as  you, 
some  night  on  the  passage  across,  lean  far 
over  and  look  down  at  the  phosphorescent 
couch  of  the  sea  for  its  recumbent  Venus  of 
the  deep,  remember  that  the  Venus  of  modern 
life  is  the  American  woman. 

Am  I  to  see  you  when  autumn,  if  nothing 


ii4      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

else,  brings  you  home — see  you  not  at  all  or 
seldom  or  often? 

At  least  this  will  remind  you  that  I  merely 
say  au  revoir. 

Adrift  for  the.  summer  rather  than  be  an 
unwilling  bride. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 

June  twenty-first. 

TILLY    SNOWDEN   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

June  21. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

Since  life  separated  us  the  other  night  I 
have  not  heard  from  you.  I  have  not  ex 
pected  a  letter,  nor  do  you  expect  one  from 
me.  But  I  am  going  away  to-morrow  for  the 
summer  and  my  heart  has  a  few  words  for 
you  which  must  be  spoken. 

It  was  not  disappointment  about  the  sum 
mer  in  England,  not  even  your  refusal  to  ex 
plain  why  you  disappointed  me,  that  held  the 
main  reason  of  my  drawing  back.  I  am  in  the 
mood  to-night  to  tell  you  some  things  very 
frankly : 

Twice  before  I  knew  you,  I  was  engaged  to 
be  married  and  twice  as  the  wedding  drew 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      115 

near  I  drew  away  from  it.  It  is  an  old,  old 
feeling  of  mine,  though  I  am  so  young,  that 
if  married  I  should  not  long  be  happy.  Of 
course  I  should  be  happy  for  a  while.  But 
afterwards!  The  interminable,  intolerable 
afterwards!  The  same  person  year  in  and 
year  out — I  should  be  stifled.  Each  of  the 
men  to  whom  I  was  engaged  had  given  me 
before  marriage  all  that  he  had  to  give:  the 
rest  I  did  not  care  for;  after  marriage  with 
either  I  foresaw  only  staleness,  his  limitations, 
monotony. 

Believe  this,  then:  there  are  things  in  you 
that  I  cling  to,  other  things  in  you  that  do 
not  draw  me  at  all.  And  I  cling  more  to  life 
than  to  you,  more  than  to  any  one  person. 
How  can  any  one  person  ever  be  all  to  me,  all 
that  I  am  meant  for,  and  /  will  live! 

Why  should  we  women  be  forced  to  spend 
our  lives  beside  the  first  spring  where  one 
happened  to  fill  one's  cup  at  life's  dawn! 
Why  be  doomed  to  die  in  old  age  at  the  same 
spring!  With  all  my  soul  I  believe  that  the 
world  which  has  slowly  thrown  off  so  many 
tyrannies  is  about  to  throw  off  other  tyran 
nies.  It  has  been  so  harsh  toward  happiness, 
so  compassionate  toward  misery  and  wrong. 


n6      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Yet  happiness  is  life's  fines  t^victory:  for  ages 
we  have  been  trying  to  defeat  our  one  best 
victory — our  natural  happiness! 

A  brief  cup  of  joy  filled  at  life's  morning— 
then  to  go  thirsty  for  the  rest  of  the  long, 
hot,  weary  day!  Why  not  goblet  after  goblet 
at  spring  after  spring — there  are  so  many 
springs!  And  thirst  is  so  eager  for  them! 

Come  to  see  me  in  the  autumn.  For  I  will 
not,  cannot,  give  you  up.  And  when  you 
come,  do  not  seek  to  renew  the  engagement. 
Let  that  go  whither  it  has  gone.  But  come 
to  see  me. 

For  I  love  you. 

TILLY. 


TILLY   SNOWDEN   TO    POLLY    BOLES 

June  21. 
POLLY  BOLES: 

This  is  good-bye  to  you  for  the  summer 
and,  better  than  that,  it  is  good-bye  to  you 
for  life.  Why  not,  in  parting,  face  the  truth 
that  we  have  long  hated  each  other  and  have 
used  our  acquaintanceship  and  our  letters  to 
express  our  hatred?  How  could  there  ever 
have  been  any  friendship  between  you  and  me? 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      117 

Let  me  tell  you  of  the  detestable  little 
signs  that  I  have  noticed  in  you  for  years. 
Are  you  aware  that  all  the  time  you  have 
occupied  your  apartment,  you  have  never 
changed  the  arrangement  of  your  furniture? 
As  soon  as  your  guests  are  gone,  you  push 
every  chair  where  it  was  before.  For  years 
your  one  seat  has  been  the  same  end  of  the 
same  frayed  sofa.  Many  a  time  I  have  noted 
your  disquietude  if  any  guest  happened  to 
sit  there  and  forced  you  to  sit  elsewhere. 
For  years  you  have  worn  the  same  breast-pin, 
though  you  have  several.  The  idea  of  your 
being  inconstant  to  a  breast-pin!  You  pride 
yourself  in  such  externals  of  faithfulness. 

You  soul  of  perfidy! 

I  leave  you  undisturbed  to  innumerable 
appointments  with  Ben,  and  with  the  same 
particular  something  to  talk  about,  falsest 
woman  I  have  ever  known. 

Have  you  confided  to  Ben  Doolittle  the 
fact  that  you  are  secretly  receiving  almost 
constant  attentions  from  Dr.  Mullen?  Will 
you  tell  him?  Or  shall  I? 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 


ii8      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

DEAR  BEN:  June  23rd. 

I  am  worried. 

I  begin  to  feel  doubtful  as  to  what  course 
I  should  pursue  with  Dr.  Claude  Mullen. 
Of  late  he  has  been  coming  too  often.  He 
has  been  writing  to  me  too  often.  He  appears 
to  be  losing  control  of  himself.  Things  cannot 
go  on  as  they  are  and  they  must  not  get  worse. 
What  I  could  not  foresee  is  his  determination 
to  hold  me  responsible  for  his  being  in  love 
with  me!  He  insists  that  7  encouraged  him 
and  am  now  unfair — me  unfair!  Of  course  I 
have  never  encouraged  his  visits;  out  of  simple 
goodness  of  heart  I  have  tolerated  them.  Now 
the  reward  of  my  kindness  is  that  he  holds  me 
responsible  and  guilty.  He  is  trying,  in  other 
words,  to  take  advantage  of  my  sympathy  for 
him.  I  do  feel  sorry  for  him! 

I  have  not  been  cruel  enough  to  dismiss 
him.  His  last  letter  is  enclosed:  it  will  give 
you  some  idea ! 

Can  you  advise  me  what  to  do?  I  have 
always  relied  upon  your  judgment  in  every 
thing. 

Faithfully  yours, 

POLLY. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      119 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

[Penciled  in  Court  Room] 

June  24th. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

Certainly  I  can  advise  you.  My  advice  is: 
tell  him  to  take  a  cab  and  drive  straight  to 
the  nearest  institution  for  the  weak-minded, 
engage  a  room,  lock  himself  in  and  pray  God 
to  give  him  some  sense.  Tell  him  to  stay 
secluded  there  until  that  prayer  is  answered. 
The  Almighty  himself  couldn't  answer  his 
prayer  until  after  his  death,  and  by  that  time 
he'd  be  out  of  the  way  anyhow  and  you 
wouldn't  mind. 

I  return  his  funeral  oration  unread,  since  I 
did  not  wish  to  attract  attention  to  myself 
as  moved  to  tears  in  open  court. 

BEN. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 
[Evening  of  the  same  day] 

POLLY,  DEAREST,  MOST  FAITHFUL  OF  WOMEN: 
This  is  a  night  I  have  long  waited  for  and 

worked  for. 
You   have   understood   why  during   these 


120     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

years  I  have  never  asked  you  to  set  a  day 
for  our  marriage.  It  has  been  a  long,  hard 
struggle,  for  me  coming  here  poor,  to  make  a 
living  and  a  practice  and  a  name.  You  know 
I  have  had  as  my  goal  not  a  living  for  one 
but  a  living  for  two — and  for  more  than  two — 
for  our  little  ones.  When  I  married  you,  I 
meant  to  rescue  you  from  the  Franklin  Flats, 
all  flats. 

But  with  these  two  hands  of  mine  I  have 
laid  hold  of  the  affairs  of  this  world  and 
shaken  them  until  they  have  heeded  me  and 
my  strength.  I  have  won,  I  am  independent, 
I  am  my  own  man  and  my  own  master,  and 
I  am  ready  to  be  your  husband  as  through  it 
all  I  have  been  your  lover. 

Name  the  day  when  I  can  be  both. 

Yet  the  day  must  be  distant:  I  am  to  leave 
this  firm  and  establish  my  own  and  I  want 
that  done  first.  Some  months  must  yet  pass. 
Any  day  of  next  Spring,  then — so  far  away 
but  nearer  than  any  other  Spring  during  these 
impatient  years. 

Polly,  constant  one,  I  am  your  constant 
lover, 

BEN  DOOLITTLE. 

Roses  to  you. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      121 

POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

June  24.. 
Oh,  BEN,  BEN,  BEN! 

My  heart  answers  you.  It  leaps  forward 
to  the  day.  I  have  set  the  day  in  my  heart 
and  sealed  it  on  my  lips.  Come  and  break 
that  seal.  To-night  I  shall  tear  two  of  the 
rosebuds  apart  and  mingle  their  petals  on  my 
pillow. 

POLLY. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  26. 

It  occurs  to  me  that  our  engagement  might 
furnish  you  the  means  of  getting  rid  of  your 
prostrated  nerve  specialist.  Write  him  to 
come  to  see  you :  tell  him  you  have  some  joyful 
news  that  must  be  imparted  at  once.  When 
he  arrives  announce  to  him  that  you  have 
named  the  day  of  your  marriage  to  me.  To 
me,  tell  him!  Then  let  him  take  himself  off. 
You  say  he  complains  that  all  this  is  getting 
on  his  nerves.  Anything  that  could  sit  on 
his  nerves  would  be  a  mighty  small  animal. 

BEN. 


122     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 


POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

June  27. 

Our  engagement  has  only  made  him  more 
determined.  He  persists  in  visiting  me.  His 
loyalty  is  touching.  Suppose  the  next  time 
he  comes  I  arrange  for  you  to  come.  Your 
meeting  him  here  might  have  the  desired 
effect. 

POLLY  BOLES. 


BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  28. 

It  would  certainly  have  the  desired  effect, 
but  perhaps  not  exactly  the  effect  he  desires. 
Madam,  would  you  wish  to  see  the  nerve 
filaments  of  your  fond  specialist  scattered 
over  your  carpet  as  his  life's  deplorable 
arcana?  No,  Polly,  not  that! 

Make  this  suggestion  to  him:  that  in  order 
to  give  him  a  chance  to  be  near  you — but  not 
too  near — you  do  offer  him  for  the  first  year 
after  our  marriage — only  one  year,  mind  you 
— you  do  offer  him,  with  my  consent  and  at  a 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     123 

good  salary,  the  position  of  our  furnace-man, 
since  he  so  loves  to  warm  himself  with  our 
fires.  It  would  enable  him  to  keep  up  his 
habit  of  getting  down  on  his  knees  and  puffing 
for  you. 

BEN. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 


DEAR  POLLY:  **' 

It  occurs  to  me  just  at  the  moment  that 
not  for  some  days  have  I  heard  you  speak  of 
your  racked  —  or  wrecked  —  nerve  specialist. 
Has  he  learned  to  control  his  microscopic 
attachment?  Has  he  found  an  antidote  for 
the  bacillus  of  his  anaemic  love? 

Polly,  my  woman,  if  he  is  still  bothering 
you,  let  me  know  at  once.  It  has  been  my 
joy  hitherto  to  share  your  troubles;  hence 
forth  it  is  my  privilege  to  take  them  on  two 
uncrushable  shoulders. 

At  the  drop  of  your  hat  I'll  even  meet  him 
in  your  flat  any  night  you  say,  and  we'll  all 
compete  for  the  consequences. 

I.  s.  y.  s.  r.  r.  (You  have  long  since  learned 
what  that  means.) 

Your  man, 

BEN  D. 


i24     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

July  15. 
DEAREST  BEN: 

You  need  not  Tgive  another  thought  to 
Dr.  Mullen.  He  does  not  annoy  me  any 
more.  He  can  drop  finally  out  of  our  cor 
respondence. 

Not  an  hour  these  days  but  my  thoughts 
hover  about  you.  Never  so  vividly  as  now 
does  there  rise  before  me  the  whole  picture 
of  our  past — of  all  these  years  together.  And 
I  am  ever  thinking  of  the  day  to  which  we 
both  look  forward  as  the  one  on  which  our 
paths  promise  to  blend  and  our  lives  are 
pledged  to  meet. 

Your  devoted 

POLLY. 


BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  JUDD  &  JUDD 

July  16. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

Yesterday  while  walking  along  the  street 
I  found  my  attention  most  favourably  drawn 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      125 

to  the  appearance  of  your  business  establish 
ment:  to  the  tubs  of  plants  at  the  entrance, 
the  vines  and  flowers  in  the  windows,  and 
the  classic  Italian  statuary  properly  mil 
dewed.  Therefore  I  venture  to  wrrite. 

Do  you  know  anything  about  ferns,  espe 
cially  Kentucky  ferns?  Do  you  ever  collect 
them  and  ship  them?  I  wish  to  place  an  order 
for  some  Kentucky  ferns  to  be  sent  to  Eng 
land.  I  had  a  list  of  those  I  desired,  but  this 
has  been  mislaid,  and  I  should  have  to  rely 
upon  the  shipper  to  make,  out  of  his  knowl 
edge,  a  collection  that  would  represent  the 
best  of  the  Kentucky  flora.  Could  you  do 
this  ? 

One  more  question,  and  you  will  please 
reply  clearly  and  honestly.  I  notice  that 
your  firm  speak  of  themselves  as  landscape 
architects.  This  leads  me  to  inquire  whether 
you  have  ever  had  any  connection  with 
Botany.  You  may  not  understand  the  ques 
tion  and  you  are  not  required  to  understand 
it:  I  simply  request  you  to  answer  it. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


126     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

JUDD  &  JUDD  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

July  17. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  esteemed  favour  to  hand.  We  gather 
and  ship  ferns  and  other  plants,  subject  to 
order,  to  any  address,  native  or  foreign,  with 
the  least  possible  delay,  and  we  shall  be 
pleased  to  execute  any  commission  which 
you  may  entrust  to  us. 

With  reference  to  your  other  inquiry,  we 
ask  leave  to  state  that  we  have  never  had 
the  slightest  connection  with  any  other  con 
cern  doing  business  in  the  city  under  the  firm- 
name  of  Botany.  We  do  not  even  find  them 
in  the  telephone  directory. 

Awaiting  your  courteous  order,  we  are 
Very  truly  yours, 

JUDD  &  JUDD. 

Per  Q. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  "jUDD  &  JUDD,  PER  Q." 

July  18. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

I  am  greatly  pleased  to  hear  that  you  have 
no  connection  with  any  other  house  doing 
business  under  the  firm-name  of  Botany,  and  I 


THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      127 

accordingly  feel  willing  to  risk  giving  you  the 
following  order:  That  you  will  make  a  col 
lection  of  the  most  highly  prized  varieties 
of  Kentucky  ferns  and  ship  them,  expenses 
prepaid,  to  this  address,  namely:  Mr.  Edward 
Blackthorne,  King  Alfred's  Wood,  Warwick 
shire,  England. 

As  a  guaranty  of  good  faith  and  as  the 
means  to  simplify  matters  without  further 
correspondence,  I  take  pleasure  in  enclosing 
my  cheque  for  $25. 

You  will  please  advise  me  when  the  ferns 
are  ready  to  be  shipped,  as  I  wish  to  come 
down  and  see  to  it  myself  that  they  actually 
do  get  off. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN  TO 
BEVERLEY  SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 

July  18. 
DEAR  SIR: 

I  met  with  the  melancholy  misfortune  a 
few  weeks  ago  of  losing  my  great  father. 
Since  his  death  I  have  been  slowly  going  over 
his  papers.  He  left  a  large  mass  of  them  in 


128     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

disorder,  for  his  was  too  active  a  mind  to 
pause  long  enough  to  put  things  in  order. 

In  a  bundle  of  notes  I  have  come  across  a 
letter  to  him  from  Burns  &  Bruce  with  the 
list  of  ferns  in  it  that  they  sent  him  and  that 
had  been  misplaced.  My  dear  father  was  a 
very  absent-minded  scholar,  as  is  natural. 
He  had  penciled  a  query  regarding  one  of  the 
ferns  on  the  list,  and  I  suppose,  while  looking 
up  the  doubtful  point,  he  had  laid  the  list 
down  to  pursue  some  other  idea  that  suddenly 
attracted  him  and  then  forgot  what  he  had 
been  doing.  My  father  worked  over  many 
ideas  and  moved  with  perfect  ease  from  one 
to  another,  being  equally  at  home  with  every 
thing  great — a  mental  giant. 

I  send  the  list  back  to  you  that  it  may  re 
mind  you  what  a  trouble  and  affliction  you 
have  been.  Do  not  acknowledge  the  receipt 
of  it,  for  I  do  not  wish  to  hear  from  you. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  JUDD  &  JUDD 

July  21. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

I  wish  to  take  up  immediately  my  com 
mission  placed  a  few  days  ago.  I  referred  in 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      129 

my  first  letter  to  a  mislaid  list  of  ferns.  This 
has  just  turned  up  and  is  herewith  enclosed, 
and  I  now  wish  you  to  make  a  collection  of 
the  ferns  called  for  on  this  list. 

Please  advise  me  at  once  whether  you  will 
do  this. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


JUDD  &  JUDD  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

July  22. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Your  letter  to  hand,  with  the  list  of  ferns 
enclosed.  We  shall  be  pleased  to  cancel  the 
original  order,  part  of  which  we  advise  you 
had  already  been  filled.  It  does  not  comprise 
the  plants  called  for  on  the  list. 

This    will    involve    some    slight    additional 
expense,  and  if  agreeable,  we  shall  be  pleased 
to   have   you   enclose    your    cheque    for    the 
slight  extra  amount  as  per  enclosed  bill. 
Very  truly  yours, 

JUDD  &  JUDD. 


130     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  JUDD  &  JUDD 

July  23. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

I  have  your  letter  and  I  take  the  greatest 
possible  pleasure  in  enclosing  my  cheque  to 
cover  the  additional  expense,  as  you  kindly 
suggest. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

October  50. 
DEAR  BEN: 

They  are  gone!  They're  off!  They  have 
weighed  anchor!  They  have  sailed;  they  have 
departed ! 

I  went  down  and  watched  the  steamer  out 
of  sight.  Packed  around  me  at  the  end  of 
the  pier  were  people,  waving  hats  and  hand 
kerchiefs,  some  laughing,  some  with  tears  on 
their  cheeks,  some  with  farewells  quivering  on 
their  dumb  mouths.  But  everybody  forgot 
his  joy  or  his  trouble  to  look  at  me:  I  out- 
waved,  out-shouted  them  all.  An  old  New 
York  Harbour  gull,  which  is  the  last  creature 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      131 

in  the  world  to  be  surprised  at  anything, 
flew  up  and  glanced  at  me  with  a  jaded  eye. 

I  have  felt  ever  since  as  if  the  steamer's 
anchor  had  been  taken  from  around  my  neck. 
I  have  become  as  human  cork  which  no 
storm,  no  leaden  weight,  could  ever  sink. 
Come  what  will  to  me  now  from  Nature's 
unkinder  powers!  Let  my  next  pair  of  shoes 
be  made  of  briers,  my  next  waistcoat  of  rag 
weed!  Fasten  every  morning  around  my 
neck  a  collar  of  the  scaly-bark  hickory!  See 
to  it  that  my  undershirts  be  made  of  the 
honey-locust!  For  olives  serve  me  green 
persimmons;  if  I  must  be  poulticed,  swab 
me  in  poultices  of  pawpaws!  But  for  the  rest 
of  my  days  may  the  Maker  of  the  world  in 
His  occasional  benevolence  save  me  from  the 
things  on  it  that  look  frail  and  harmless  like 
ferns. 

Come  up  to  dinner!  Come,  all  there  is  of 
you!  We'll  open  the  friendly  door  of  some 
friendly  place  and  I'll  dine  you  on  everything 
commensurate  with  your  simplicity.  I'll  open 
a  magnum  or  a  magnissimum.  I'll  open  a 
new  subway  and  roll  down  into  it  for  joy. 

They  are  gone  to  him,  his  emblems  of 
fidelity.  I  don't  care  what  he  does  with  them. 


132     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

They  will  for  the  rest  of  his  days  admonish 
him  that  in  his  letter  to  me  he  sinned  against 
the  highest  law  of  his  own  gloriously  endowed 
nature: 

Le  Genie  Oblige 

Accept  this  phrase,  framed  by  me  for  your 
pilgrim's  script  of  wayside  French  sayings. 
Accept  it  and  translate  it  to  mean  that  he 
who  has  genius,  no  matter  what  the  world 
may  do  to  him,  no  matter  what  ruin  Nature 
may  work  in  him,  that  he  who  has  genius, 
is  under  obligation  so  long  as  he  lives  to  do 
nothing  mean  and  to  do  nothing  meanly. 

BEVERLEY. 


ANNE  RAEBURN  TO   EDWARD   BLACKTHORNE  IN 
ITALY 

King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England, 
November  30. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  BLACKTHORNS: 

I  continue  my  chronicles  of  an  English 
country-place  during  the  absence  of  its  master, 
with  the  hope  that  the  reading  of  the  chroni 
cles  may  cause  him  to  hasten  his  return. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      133 

An  amusing,  perhaps  a  rather  grave,  mat 
ter  passed  under  my  observation  yesterday. 
The  afternoon  was  clear  and  mild  and  I  had 
taken  my  work  out  into  the  garden.  From 
where  I  sat  I  could  see  Hodge  at  work  with 
his  spade  some  distance  away.  Quite  uncon 
sciously,  I  suppose,  I  lifted  my  eyes  at  in 
tervals  to  look  toward  him,  for  by  degrees  I 
became  aware  that  Hodge  at  intervals  was 
looking  toward  me.  I  noticed  that  he  was 
red  in  the  face,  which  is  always  a  sign  of  his 
anger;  apparently  he  wavered  as  to  whether 
he  should  or  should  not  do  a  debatable  thing. 
Finally  lifting  his  spade  high  and  bringing 
it  down  with  such  force  that  he  sent  it  deep 
into  the  mould  where  it  stood  upright,  he 
started  toward  me. 

You  know  how,  as  he  approaches  anyone, 
he  loosens  his  cap  from  his  forehead  and 
scrapes  the  back  of  his  neck  with  the  back 
of  his  thumb.  As  he  stood  before  me  he  did 
this  now.  Then  he  made  the  following  an 
nouncement  in  the  voice  of  an  aggrieved  bully: 

"The  Scolopendium  vulgar e  put  up  two  new 
shoots  after  he  went  away,  mum.  Bishop's 
crooks  he  calls  'em,  mum." 

I  replied  that  I  was  glad  to  hear  the  ferns 


134     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

were  thrifty.  He,  jerking  his  thumb  toward 
the  fern  bank,  added  still  more  resentfully: 

"The  Adiantum  nigrum  put  up  some,  mum." 

I  replied  that  I  should  announce  to  you  the 
good  news. 

Plainly  this  was  not  what  he  had  come  to 
tell  me,  for  he  stood  embarrassed  but  not 
budging,  his  eyes  blazing  with  a  kind  of  stupid 
fury.  At  last  he  brought  out  his  trouble. 

It  seems  that  one  day  last  week  a  hamper 
of  ferns  arrived  for  you  from  New  York,  with 
only  the  names  of  the  shippers,  charges  pre 
paid.  I  was  not  at  home,  having  that  day 
gone  to  the  Vicar's  with  some  marmalade; 
so  Hodge  took  it  upon  himself  to  receive  the 
hamper.  By  his  confession  he  unwrapped 
the  package  and  discovering  the  contents  to 
be  a  collection  of  fern-roots,  with  the  list  of 
the  Latin  names  attached,  he  re-wrapped  them 
and  re-shipped  them  to  the  forwarding  agents 
— charges  to  be  collected  in  New  York. 

This  is  now  Hodge's  plight:  he  is  uncertain 
whether  the  plants  were  some  you  had  ordered, 
or  were  a  gift  to  you  from  some  friend,  or 
merely  a  gratuitous  advertisement  by  an 
American  nurseryman.  Whether  yours  or 
another's,  of  much  value  to  you  or  none,  he 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      135 

resolved  that  they  should  not  enter  the  gar 
den.  There  was  no  place  for  them  in  the 
garden  without  there  being  a  place  for  their 
Latin  names  in  his  head,  and  his  head  would 
hold  no  more.  At  least  his  temper  is  the  same 
that  has  incited  all  English  rebellion:  human 
nature  need  not  stand  for  it! 

The  skies  are  wistful  some  days  with  blue 
that  is  always  brushed  over  by  clouds:  Eng 
land's  same  still  blue  beyond  her  changing 
vapours.  The  evenings  are  cosy  with  lamps 
and  November  fires  and  with  new  books  that 
no  hand  opens.  A  few  late  flowers  still  bloom, 
loyal  to  youth  in  a  world  that  asks  of  them 
now  only  their  old  age.  The  birds  sit  silent 
with  ruffled  feathers  and  look  sturdy  and 
established  on  the  bare  shrubs:  liberals  in 
spring,  conservatives  in  autumn,  wise  in 
season.  The  larger  trees  strip  their  summer 
flippancies  from  them  garment  by  garment 
and  stand  in  their  noble  nakedness,  a  challenge 
to  the  cold. 

The  dogs  began  to  wait  for  you  the  day 
you  left.  They  wait  still,  resolved  at  any  cost 
to  show  that  they  can  be  patient;  that  is,  well- 
bred.  The  one  of  them -who  has  the  higher 
intelligence!  The  other  evening  I  filled  and 


136     THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

lighted  your  pipe  and  held  it  out  to  him  as 
I  have  often  seen  you  do.  He  struck  the 
floor  softly  with  the  tip  of  his  tail  and  smiled 
with  his  eyes  very  tenderly  at  me,  as  saying: 
"You  want  to  see  whether  I  remember  that 
he  did  that;  of  course  I  remember."  Then, 
with  a  sudden  suspicion  that  he  was  possibly 
being  very  stupid,  with  quick,  gruff  bark  he 
ran  out  of  the  room  to  make  sure.  Back  he 
came,  his  face  in  broad  silent  laughter  at 
himself  and  his  eyes  announcing  to  me — 
"Not  yet." 

Do  not  all  these  things  touch  you  with 
homesickness  amid  the  desolation  of  the 
Grand  Canal — with  the  shallow  Venetian 
songs  that  patter  upon  the  ear  but  do  not 
reach  down  into  strong  Northern  English 
hearts  ? 

I  have  already  written  this  morning  to 
Mrs.  Blackthorne.  As  each  of  you  hands  my 
letters  to  the  other,  these  petty  chronicles, 
sent  out  divided  here  in  England,  become 
united  in  a  foreign  land. 

I  am,  dear  Mr.  Blackthorne, 

Respectfully  yours, 

ANNE  RAEBURN. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      137 

JUDD  &  JUDD  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

December  27. 

DEAR  SIR: 

We  have  to  report  that  the  ferns  recently 
shipped  to  a  designated  address  in  England 
in  accordance  with  your  instructions  have 
been  returned  with  charges  for  return  ship 
ment  to  be  collected  at  our  office.  We  enclose 
our  bill  for  these  charges  and  ask  your  atten 
tion  to  it  at  your  early  convenience.  The 
ferns  are  ruined  and  worthless  to  us. 
Very  truly  yours, 

JUDD  &  JUDD. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  JUDD  &  JUDD 

December  30. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your 
letter  and  I  take  the  greatest  pleasure  imagin 
able   in   enclosing   my   cheque   to   cover   the 
charges  of  the  return  shipment. 
Very  truly  yours, 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


138     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BEN   DOOLITTLE 

DEAR  BEN:  December  28. 

The  ferns  have  come  back  to  me  from  England! 

BEVERLEY. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

DEAR  BEVERLEY:  December  29. 

I  am  with  you,  brother,  to  the  last  root. 
But  don't  send  any  more  ferns  to  anybody — 
don't  try  to,  for  God's  sake!  I'm  with  you! 
J'y  suis,  /'y  reste.  (French  forever!  Boutez 
en  avant,  mon  French!) 

By  the  way,  our  advice  is  that  you  drop 
the  suit  against  Phillips  &  Faulds.  They  are 
engaged  in  a  lawsuit  and  as  we  look  over  the 
distant  Louisville  battlefield,  we  can  see  only 
the  wounded  and  the  dying — and  the  poor. 
Would  you  squeeze  a  druggist's  sponge  for 
live  tadpoles?  Whatever  you  got,  you 
wouldn't  get  tadpoles,  not  live  ones. 

Our  fee  is  $50;  hadn't  you  better  stop  at 
$50  and  think  yourself  lucky?  Monsieur  a 
bien  tombe. 

Any  more  fern  letters?     Don't  forget  them. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      139 

BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BEN   DOOLITTLE 

December  30. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  take  your  advice,  of  course,  about  drop 
ping  the  suit  against  Phillips  &  Faulds,  and 
I  take  pleasure  in  enclosing  you  my  cheque 
for  $50 — damn  them.  That's  $75 — damn 
them.  And  if  anybody  else  anywhere  around 
hasn't  received  a  cheque  from  me  for  nothing, 
let  him  or  her  rise,  and  him  or  her  will  get  one. 

No  more  letters  yet.  But  I  feel  a  disturb 
ance  in  the  marrow  of  my  bones  and  doubt 
less  others  are  on  the  way,  as  one  more  spell 
of  bad  weather — another  storm  for  me. 

BEVERLEY. 


CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
December  25. 

SIR: 

This  is  Christmas  Day,  when  every  one  is 
thinking  of  peace  and  good  will  on  earth. 
It  makes  me  think  of  you.  I  cannot  forget 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

you,  my  feeling  is  too  bitter  for  oblivion,  for 
it  was  you  who  were  instrumental  in  bringing 
about  my  father's  death.  One  damp  night 
I  heard  him  get  up  and  then  I  heard  him  fall, 
and  rushing  to  him  to  see  what  was  the  mat 
ter,  I  found  that  he  had  stumbled  down  the 
three  steps  which  led  from  his  bedroom  to  his 
library,  and  had  rolled  over  on  the  floor,  with 
his  candle  burning  on  the  carpet  beside  him. 
I  lifted  him  up  and  asked  him  what  he  was 
doing  out  of  bed  and  he  said  he  had  some  kind 
of  recollection  about  a  list  of  ferns;  it  worried 
him  and  he  could  not  sleep. 

The  fall  was  a  great  shock  to  his  nervous 
system  and  to  mine,  and  a  few  days  after  that 
he  contracted  pneumonia  from  the  cold,  being 
already  troubled  with  lumbago. 

My  father's  life-work,  which  will  never  be 
finished  now,  was  to  be  called  "  Approxima 
tions  to  Consciousness  in  Plants."  He  be 
lieved  that  bushes  knew  a  great  deal  of  what 
is  going  on  around  them,  and  that  trees  some 
times  have  queer  notions  which  cause  them 
to  grow  crooked,  and  that  ferns  are  most  in 
telligent  beings.  It  was  while  thus  engaged, 
in  a  weakened  condition  with  this  work  on 
"Consciousness  in  Plants,"  that  he  suddenly 


THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      141 

lost  consciousness  himself  and  did  not  after 
wards  regain  it  as  an  earthly  creature. 

I  shall  always  remember  you  for  having 
been  instrumental  in  his  death.  This  is  the 
kind  of  Christmas  Day  you  have  presented 
to  me. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
January  7. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Necessity  knows  no  law,  and  I  have  be 
come  a  sad  victim  of  necessity,  hence  this 
appeal  to  you. 

My  wonderful  father  left  me  in  our  proud 
social  position  without  means.  I  was  thrown 
by  his  death  upon  my  own  resources,  and  I 
have  none  but  my  natural  faculties  and  my 
wonderful  experience  as  his  secretary. 

With  these  I  had  to  make  my  way  to  a 
livelihood  and  deep  as  was  the  humiliation 
of  a  proud,  sensitive  daughter  of  the  South 
and  of  such  a  father,  I  have  been  forced  to 
come  down  to  a  position  I  never  expected  to 


142     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

occupy.  I  have  accepted  a  menial  engage 
ment  in  a  small  florist  establishment  of  young 
Mr.  Andy  Peters,  of  this  place. 

Mr.  Andy  Peters  was  one  of  my  father's 
students  of  Botany.  He  sometimes  stayed 
to  supper,  though,  of  course,  my  father  did 
not  look  upon  him  as  our  social  equal,  and 
cautioned  me  against  receiving  his  attentions, 
not  that  I  needed  the  caution,  for  I  repeatedly 
watched  them  sitting  together  and  they  were 
most  uncongenial.  My  father's  acquaintance 
with  him  made  it  easier  for  me  to  enter  his 
establishment.  I  am  to  be  his  secretary  and 
aid  him  with  my  knowledge  of  plants  and 
especially  to  bring  the  influence  of  my  social 
position  to  bear  on  his  business. 

Since  you  were  the  instrument  of  my  father's 
death,  you  should  be  willing  to  aid  me  in  my 
efforts  to  improve  my  condition  in  life.  I 
write  to  say  that  it  would  be  as  little  as  you 
could  do  to  place  your  future  commissions 
for  ferns  with  Mr.  Andy  Peters.  He  has  just 
gone  into  the  florist's  business  and  these  would 
help  him  and  be  a  recommendation  to  me  for 
bringing  in  custom.  He  might  raise  my 
salary,  which  is  so  small  that  it  is  galling. 

While  father  remained  on  earth  and  roved 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      143 

the  campus,  he  filled  my  life  completely.  I 
have  nothing  to  fill  me  now  but  orders  for 
Mr.  Andy  Peters. 

Hoping  for  an  early  reply, 

A  proud  daughter  of  the  Southland, 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

January  10. 

DEAR  BEN: 

The  tumult  in  my  bones  was  a  well-advised 
monitor.  More  fern  letters  were  on  the  way: 
I  enclose  them. 

You  will  discover  from  the  earlier  of  these 
two  documents  that  during  a  late  unconscious 
scrimmage  in  North  Carolina  I  murdered  an 
aged  botanist  of  international  reputation. 
At  least  one  wish  of  my  life  is  gratified:  that 
if  I  ever  had  to  kill  anybody,  it  would  be  some 
one  who  was  great.  You  will  gather  from 
this  letter  that,  all  unaware  of  what  I  was 
doing,  I  tripped  him  up,  rolled  him  down 
stairs,  knocked  his  candle  out  of  his  hand  and, 
as  he  lay  on  his  back  all  learned  and  amazed, 
I  attacked  him  with  pneumonia,  while  lum 
bago  undid  him  from  below. 


144     THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

You  will  likewise  observe  that  his  daughter 
seems  to  be  an  American  relative  of  Hamlet 
— she  has  a  "harp"  in  her  head:  she  harps  on 
the  father. 

One  thing  I  cannot  get  out  of  my  head: 
have  you  noticed  anything  wrong  at  the  Club  ? 
Two  or  three  evenings,  as  we  have  gone  in  to 
dinner,  have  you  noticed  anything  wrong? 
Those  two  charlatans  put  their  heads  to 
gether  last  night:  their  two  heads  put  together 
do  not  make  one  complete  head — that  may 
be  the  trouble;  beware  of  less  than  one  good 
full-weight  head.  Something  is  wrong  and  I 
believe  they  are  the  dark  forces:  have  you 
observed  anything? 

BEVERLEY. 


BEN    DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

January  n. 

DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

The  letters  are  filed  away  with  their  pred 
ecessors. 

If  I  am  any  judge  of  human  nature,  you 
will  receive  others  from  this  daughter  of  the 
South  in  the  same  strain. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      145 

If  her  great  father  (local  meaning,  old  dad) 
is  really  dead,  he  probably  sawed  his  head  off 
against  a  tight  clothes-line  in  the  back-yard 
some  dark  night,  while  on  his  way  to  their 
gooseberry  bushes  to  see  if  they  had  any 
sense. 

More  likely  he  hurled  himself  headlong 
into  eternity  to  get  rid  of  her — rolled  down 
the  steps  with  sheer  delight  and  reached  for 
pneumonia  with  a  glad  hand  to  escape  his 
own  offspring  and  her  endless  society. 

The  most  terrifying  thing  to  me  about  this 
new  Clara  is  her  Great  Desert  dryness;  no 
drop  of  humour  ever  bedewed  her  mind.  I 
believe  those  eminent  gentlemen  who  call 
themselves  biologists  have  recently  discovered 
that  the  human  system,  if  deprived  of  water, 
will  convert  part  of  its  dry  food  into  water. 

I  wish  these  gentlemen  would  study  the 
contrariwise  case  of  Clara:  she  would  convert 
a  drink  of  water  into  a  mouthful  of  sawdust. 

Humour  has  long  been  codified  by  me  as  one 
of  nature's  most  solemn  gifts.  I  divide  all 
witnesses  into  two  classes:  those  who,  while 
giving  testimony  or  being  examined  or  cross- 
examined,  cause  laughter  in  the  courtroom  at 
others.  The  second  class  turn  all  laughter 


146     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

against  themselves.  That  is  why  the  gift  of 
humour  is  so  grave — it  keeps  us  from  making 
ourselves  ridiculous.  A  Frenchman  (still  my 
French)  has  recently  pointed  out  that  the 
reason  we  laugh  is  to  drive  things  out  of  the 
world,  to  jolly  them  out  of  existence  and  have 
a  good  time  as  we  do  it.  Therefore  not  to 
be  laughed  at  is  to  survive. 

Beware  of  this  new  Clara!  War  breeds  two 
kinds  of  people :  heroes  and  shams — the  heroic 
and  the  mock  heroic.  You  and  I  know  the 
Civil  War  bred  two  kinds  of  burlesque 
Southerner:  the  post-bellum  Colonel  and  the 
spurious  proud  daughter  of  the  Southland. 
Proud,  sensitive  Southern  people  do  not  go 
around  proclaiming  that  they  are  proud  and 
sensitive.  And  that  word — Southland !  Hang 
the  word  and  shoot  the  man  who  made  it. 
There  are  no  proud  daughters  of  the  Westland 
or  of  the  Northland.  Beware  of  this  new 
Clara!  This  breath  of  the  Desert! 

Yes,  I  have  noticed  something  wrong  in  the 
Club.  I  have  hesitated  about  speaking  to  you 
of  it.  I  do  not  know  what  it  means,  but  my 
suspicions  lie  where  yours  lie — with  those  two 
wallpaper  doctors. 

BEN. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      147 


RUFUS  KENT  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

The  Great  Dipper, 
January  12. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS: 

I  have  been  President  of  this  Club  so  long 
— they  have  refused  to  have  any  other  presi 
dent  during  my  lifetime  and  call  me  its  Nestor 
— that  whenever  I  am  present  my  visits  are 
apt  to  consist  of  interruptions.  To-night  it 
is  raining  and  not  many  members  are  scat 
tered  through  the  rooms.  I  shall  be  at  leisure 
to  answer  your  very  grave  letter.  (I  see,  how 
ever,  that  I  am  going  to  be  interrupted.)  .  .  . 

My  dear  Mr.  Sands,  you  are  a  compara 
tively  new  member  and  much  allowance  must 
be  made  for  your  lack  of  experience  with  the 
traditions  of  this  Club.  You  ask:  "What  is 
this  gossip  about?  Who  started  it;  what  did 
he  start  it  with?" 

My  dear  Mr.  Sands,  there  is  no  gossip  in 
this  Club.  It  would  not  be  tolerated.  We 
have  here  only  the  criticism  of  life.  This 
Club  is  The  Great  Dipper.  The  origin  of  the 
name  has  now  become  obscure.  It  may  first 
have  been  adopted  to  mean  that  the  members 


i48     THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

would  constitute  a  star-system — a  human  con 
stellation;  it  may  be  otherwise  interpreted  as 
the  wit  of  some  one  of  the  founders  who 
wished  to  declare  in  advance  that  the  Club 
would  be  a  big,  long-handled  spoon;  with 
which  any  member  could  dip  into  the  ocean 
of  human  affairs  and  ladle  out  what  he  re 
quired  for  an  evening's  conversation. 

No  gossip  here,  then.  The  criticism  of  life 
only.  What  is  said  in  the  Club  would  em 
brace  many  volumes.  In  fact  I  myself  have 
perhaps  discoursed  to  the  vast  extent  of  whole 
shelves  full.  Probably  had  the  Club  under 
taken  to  bind  its  conversation,  the  clubhouse 
would  not  hold  the  books.  But  not  a  word 
of  gossip. 

I  now  come  to  the  subject  of  your  letter, 
and  this  is  what  I  have  ascertained: 

During  the  past  summer  one  of  the  mem 
bers  of  the  Club  (no  name,  of  course,  can  be 
called)  was  travelling  in  England.  Three  or 
four  American  tourists  joined  him  at  one 
place  or  another,  and  these,  finding  them 
selves  in  one  of  those  enchanted  regions  of 
England  to  which  nearly  all  tourists  go  and 
which  in  our  time  is  made  more  famous  by 
the  novels  of  Edward  Blackthorne — whom  I 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      149 

met  in  England  and  many  of  whose  works 
are  read  here  in  the  Club  by  admirers  of  his 
genius — this  group  of  American  tourists  natu 
rally  went  to  call  on  him  at  his  home.  They 
were  very  hospitably  received;  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  praise  of  him  and  praise  every 
where  in  the  world  is  hospitably  received,  so 
I  hear.  It  was  a  pleasant  afternoon;  the 
American  visitors  had  tea  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Blackthorne  in  their  garden.  Afterwards  Mr. 
Blackthorne  took  them  for  a  stroll. 

There  had  been  some  discussion,  as  it 
seems,  of  English  and  of  American  fiction,  of 
the  younger  men  coming  on  in  the  two  litera 
tures.  One  of  the  visitors  innocently  in 
quired  of  Mr.  Blackthorne  whether  he  knew 
of  your  work.  Instantly  all  noticed  a  change 
in  his  manner:  plainly  the  subject  was  dis 
tasteful,  and  he  put  it  away  from  him  with 
some  vague  rejoinder  in  a  curt  undertone. 
At  once  some  one  of  the  visitors  conceived 
the  idea  of  getting  at  the  reason  for  Mr. 
Blackthorne's  unaccountable  hostility.  But 
his  evident  resolve  was  not  to  be  drawn  out. 

As  they  strolled  through  the  garden,  they 
paused  to  admire  his  collection  of  ferns,  and 
he  impulsively  turned  to  the  American  who 


ISO     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

had  been  questioning  him  and  pointed  to  a 
little  spot. 

"That,"  he  said,  "was  once  reserved  for 
some  ferns  which  your  young  American  novel 
ist  promised  to  send  me." 

The  whole  company  gathered  curiously 
about  the  spot  and  all  naturally  asked,  "But 
where  are  the  ferns?" 

Mr.  Blackthorne  without  a  word  and  with 
an  air  of  regret  that  even  so  little  had  escaped 
him,  led  the  party  further  away. 

That  is  all.  Perhaps  that  is  what  you  hear 
in  the  Club:  the  hum  of  the  hive  that  a  mem 
ber  should  have  acted  in  some  disagreeable, 
unaccountable  way  toward  a  very  great  man 
whose  work  so  many  of  us  revere.  You  have 
merely  run  into  the  universal  instinct  of 
human  nature  to  think  evil  of  human  nature. 
Emerson  had  about  as  good  an  opinion  of  it  as 
any  man  that  ever  lived,  and  he  called  it  a 
scoundrel.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  mysteries 
that  we  are  born  with  a  poor  opinion  of  one 
another  and  begin  to  show  it  as  babies.  If 
you  do  not  think  that  babies  despise  one  an 
other,  put  a  lot  of  them  together  for  a  few 
hours  and  see  how  much  good  opinion  is  left. 

I  feel  bound  to  say  that  your  letter  is  most 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      151 

unbridled.  There  cannot  be  many  things 
with  which  the  people  of  Kentucky  are  more 
familiar  than  the  bridle,  yet  they  always  im 
press  outsiders  as  the  most  unbridled  of 
Americans.  I  will  add,  however,  that  patri 
cian  blood,  ancestral  blood,  is  always  un 
bridled.  Otherwise  I  might  not  now  be  styled 
the  Nestor  of  this  Club.  Only  some  kind  of 
youthful  Hector  in  this  world  ever  makes  one 
of  its  aged  Nestors.  I  am  interrupted 
again.  .  .  . 

I  must  conclude  my  letter  rather  abruptly. 
My  advice  to  you  is  not  to  pay  the  slightest 
attention  to  all  this  miserable  gossip  in  the 
Club.  I  am  too  used  to  that  sort  of  thing 
here  to  notice  it  myself.  And  will  you  not 
at  an  early  date  give  me  the  pleasure  of  your 
company  at  dinner? 

Faithfully  yours, 

RUFUS  KENT. 


PART  THIRD 


CLARA   LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN   TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 

May  i,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  SIR: 

This  small  greenhouse  of  Mr.  Andy  Peters 
is  a  stifling,  lonesome  place.  His  acquaint 
ances  are  not  the  class  of  people  who  buy 
flowers  unless  there  is  a  death  in  the  family. 
He  has  no  social  position,  and  receives  very 
few  orders  in  that  way.  I  do  what  I  can  for 
him  through  my  social  connections.  Time 
hangs  heavily  on  my  hands  and  I  have  little 
to  do  but  think  of  my  lot. 

When  Mr.  Peters  and  I  are  not  busy,  I  do 
not  find  him  companionable.  He  does  not 
possess  the  requisite  attainments.  We  have 
a  small  library  in  this  town,  and  I  thought  I 
would  take  up  reading.  I  have  always  felt  so 
much  at  home  with  all  literature.  I  asked  the 
librarian  to  suggest  something  new  in  fiction 
and  she  urged  me  to  read  a  novel  by  young  Mr. 

152 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      153 

Beverley  Sands,  the  Kentucky  novelist.  I  write 
now  to  inquire  whether  you  are  the  Mr.  Bever 
ley  Sands  who  wrote  the  novel.  If  you  are,  I 
wish  to  tell  you  how  glad  I  am  that  I 
have  long  had  the  pleasure  of  your  ac 
quaintance.  Your  story  comes  quite  close 
to  me.  You  understand  what  it  means  to  be 
a  proud  daughter  of  the  Southland  who  is 
thrown  upon  her  own  resources.  Your  heroine 
and  I  are  most  alike.  There  is  a  wonderful 
description  in  your  book  of  a  woodland  scene 
with  ferns  in  it. 

Would  you  mind  my  sending  you  my  own 
copy  of  your  book,  to  have  you  write  in  it 
some  little  inscription  such  as  the  following: 
"For  Miss  Clara  Louise  Chamberlain  with 
the  compliments  of  Beverley  Sands." 

Your  story  gives  me  a  different  feeling  from 
what  I  have  hitherto  entertained  toward  you. 
You  may  not  have  understood  my  first  letters 
to  you.  The  poor  and  proud  and  sensitive 
are  so  often  misunderstood.  You  have  so 
truly  appreciated  me  in  drawing  the  heroine 
of  your  book  that  I  feel  as  much  attracted  to 
you  now  as  I  was  repelled  from  you  formerly. 

Respectfully  yours, 
CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


154     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 


CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May  10,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS: 

I  wish  to  thank  you  for  putting  your  name 
in  my  copy  of  your  story.  Your  kindness 
encourages  me  to  believe  that  you  are  all 
that  your  readers  would  naturally  think  you 
to  be.  And  I  feel  that  I  can  reach  out  to  you 
for  sympathy. 

The  longer  I  remain  in  this  place,  the  more 
out  of  place  I  feel.  But  my  main  trouble  is 
that  I  have  never  been  able  to  meet  the 
whole  expense  of  my  father's  funeral,  though 
no  one  knows  this  but  the  undertaker,  unless 
he  has  told  it.  He  is  quite  capable  of  doing 
such  a  thing.  The  other  day  he  passed  me, 
sitting  on  his  hearse,  and  he  gave  me  a  look 
that  was  meant  to  remind  me  of  my  debt  and 
that  was  most  uncomplimentary. 

And  yet  I  was  not  extravagant.  Any  ig 
norant  observer  of  the  procession  would 
never  have  supposed  that  my  father  was  a 
thinker  of  any  consequence.  The  faculty  of 
the  college  attended,  but  they  did  not  make 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      155 

as   much  of  a   show  as   at   Commencement. 
They  never  do  at  funerals. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  place  myself  under 
obligation  to  anyone,  least  of  all  to  a  stranger, 
by  receiving  aid.  I  do  not  ask  it.  I  now 
wish  that  I  had  never  spoken  to  you  of  your 
having  been  instrumental  in  my  father's 
death. 

A  proud  daughter  of  the  Southland, 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


CLARA    LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN    TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May  17,  igi2. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS: 

I  have  received  your  cheque  and  I  think 
what  you  have  done  is  most  appropriate. 

Since  I  wrote  you  last,  my  position  in  this 
establishment  has  become  still  more  em 
barrassing.  Mr.  Andy  Peters  has  begun  to 
offer  me  his  attentions.  I  have  done  nothing 
to  bring  about  this  infatuation  for  me  and  I 
regard  it  as  most  inopportune. 

I  should  like  to  leave  here  and  take  a  posi 
tion  in  New  York.  If  I  could  find  a  situation 
there  as  secretary  to  some  gentleman,  my 


156     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

experience  as  my  great  father's  secretary 
would  of  course  qualify  me  to  succeed  as  his. 
You  may  not  have  cordially  responded  to  my 
first  letters,  but  you  cannot  deny  that  they 
were  well  written.  If  the  gentleman  were  a 
married  man,  I  could  assure  the  family  be 
forehand  that  there  would  be  no  occasion  for 
jealousy  on  his  wife's  part,  as  so  often  hap-( 
pens  with  secretaries,  I  have  heard.  If  he 
should  have  lost  his  wife  and  should  have 
little  children,  I  do  love  little  children. 
While  not  acting  as  his  secretary,  I  could  be 
acting  with  the  children. 

If  my  grey-haired  father,  who  is  now  be 
yond  the  blue  skies,  were  only  back  in  North 
Carolina! 

CLARA  LOUISE. 


CLARA   LOUISE    CHAMBERLAIN   TO 
BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May  21,  1912. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS  : 

I  have  been  forced  to  leave  forever  the 
greenhouse  of  Mr.  Andy  Peters  and  am  now 
thrown  upon  my  own  resources  without 
a  roof  over  my  proud  head. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      157 

Mr.  Andy  Peters  is  a  confirmed  rascal. 
I  almost  feel  that  I  shall  have  to  do  some 
thing  desperate  if  I  am  to  succeed. 

CLARA  LOUISE  CHAMBERLAIN. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BEN    DOOLITTLE 

May  24,  1912. 
DEAR  BEN: 

Clara  Louise  Chamberlain  is  in  New  York! 
God  Almighty! 

I  have  been  so  taken  up  lately  with  other 
things  that  I  have  forgotten  to  send  you  a 
little  bundle  of  letters  from  her.  You  will 
discover  from  one  of  these  that  I  gave  her  a 
cheque.  I  know  you  will  say  it  was  folly, 
perhaps  criminal  folly;  but  I  was  in  a  way 
"instrumental"  in  bringing  about  the  great 
botanist's  demise. 

If  I  had  described  no  ferns,  there  would 
have  been  no  fern  trouble,  no  fern  list.  The 
old  gentleman  would  not  have  forgotten  the 
list,  if  I  had  not  had  it  sent  to  him;  hence  he 
would  not  have  gotten  up  at  midnight  to 
search  for  it,  would  not  have  fallen  down 
stairs,  might  never  have  had  pneumonia.  I 
can  never  be  acquitted  of  responsibility! 


158     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

Besides,  she  praised  my  novel  (something 
you  have  never  done!):  that  alone  was  worth 
nearly  a  hundred  dollars  to  me!  Now  she  is 
here  and  she  writes,  asking  me  to  help  her  to 
find  employment,  as  she  is  without  means. 

But  I  can't  have  that  woman  as  my  secre 
tary!  I  dictate  my  novels.  Novels  are  mat 
ters  of  the  emotions.  The  secretary  of  a 
novelist  must  not  interfere  with  the  flow  of 
his  emotions.  If  I  were  dictating  to  this 
woman,  she  would  be  like  an  organ-grinder, 
and  I  should  be  nothing  but  a  little  hollow- 
eyed  monkey,  wondering  what  next  to  do, 
and  too  terrified  not  to  do  something;  my 
poor  brain  would  be  unable  even  to  hesitate 
about  an  idea  for  fear  she  would  think  my 
ideas  had  given  out.  Besides  she  would  be 
the  living  presence  of  this  whole  Pharaoh's 
plague  of  Nile  Green  ferns. 

Let  her  be  your  secretary,  will  you?  In 
your  mere  lawyer's  work,  you  do  not  have 
any  emotions.  Give  her  a  job,  for  God's 
sake!  And  remember  you  have  never  refused 
me  anything  in  your  life.  I  enclose  her  ad 
dress  and  please  don't  send  it  back  to  me. 

For  I  am  sick,  just  sick!  I  am  going  to 
undress  and  get  in  bed  and  send  for  the 


THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      159 

doctor  and  stretch  myself  out  under  my 
bolster  and  die  my  innocent  death.  And 
God  have  mercy  on  all  of  you!  But  I  already 
know,  when  I  open  my  eyes  in  Eternity,  what 
will  be  the  first  thing  I'll  see.  O  Lord,  I 
wonder  if  there  is  anything  but  ferns  in  heaven 
and  hell! 

BEVERLEY. 


BENJAMIN    DOOLITTLE    TO    CLARA    LOUISE 
CHAMBERLAIN 

May   2$,    IQI2. 

DEAR  MADAM: 

Mr.  Beverley  Sands  is  very  much  indis 
posed  just  at  the  present  time,  and  has  been 
kind  enough  to  write  me  with  the  request  that 
I  interest  myself  in  securing  for  you  a  position 
as  private  secretary.  Nothing  permanent  is 
before  me  this  morning,  but  I  write  to  say  that 
I  could  give  you  some  work  to-morrow  for  the 
time  at  least,  if  you  will  kindly  call  at  these 
offices  at  ten  o'clock. 

Very  truly  yours, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 


160     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

BEN   DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

May  27,  1912. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

If  you  keep  on  getting  into  trouble,  some 
day  you'll  get  in  and  never  get  out.  You 
sent  her  a  cheque!  Didn't  you  know  that 
in  doing  this  you  had  sent  her  a  blank  cheque, 
which  she  could  afterwards  fill  in  at  any  cost 
to  your  peace?  If  you  are  going  to  distribute 
cheques  to  young  ladies  merely  because  their 
fathers  die,  I  shall  take  steps  to  have  you 
placed  in  my  legal  possession  as  an  adult 
infant. 

Here's  what  I've  done — I  wrote  to  your 
ward,  asking  her  to  present  herself  at  this 
office  at  ten  o'clock  yesterday  morning.  She 
was  here  punctually.  I  had  left  instructions 
that  she  should  be  shown  at  once  into  my 
private  office. 

When  she  entered,  I  said  good  morning, 
and  pointed  to  a  typewriter  and  to  some  mat 
ter  which  I  asked  her  to  copy.  Meantime  I 
finished  writing  a  hypothetical  address  to  a 
hypothetical  jury  in  a  hypothetical  case,  at 
the  same  time  making  it  as  little  like  an  actual 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      161 

address  to  a  jury  as  possible  and  as  little  like 
law  as  possible. 

Then  I  asked  her  to  receive  the  dictation 
of  the  address,  which  was  as  follows : 

"I  beg  you  now  to  take  a  good  look  at  this 
young  woman — young,  but  old  enough  to 
know  what  she  is  doing.  You  will  not  dis 
cover  in  her  appearance,  gentlemen,  any 
marks  of  the  adventuress.  But  you  are  men 
of  too  much  experience  not  to  know  that 
the  adventuress  does  not  reveal  her  marks. 
As  for  my  client,  he  is  a  perfectly  innocent 
man.  Worse  than  innocent;  he  is,  on  account 
of  a  certain  inborn  weakness,  a  rather  helpless 
human  being  whenever  his  sympathies  are 
appealed  to,  or  if  anyone  looks  at  him  pleas 
antly,  or  but  speaks  a  kind  word.  In  a 
moment  of  such  weakness  he  yielded  to  this 
woman's  appeal  to  his  sympathies.  At  once 
she  converted  his  generosity  into  a  claim,  and 
now  she  has  begun  to  press  that  claim.  But 
that  is  an  old  story:  the  greater  your  kindness 
to  certain  people,  the  more  certain  they  be 
come  that  your  kindness  is  simply  their  due. 
The  better  you  are,  the  worse  you  must  have 
been.  Your  present  virtues  are  your  acknowl 
edgment  of  former  shortcomings.  It  has  be- 


162     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

come  the  design  of  this  adventuress — my 
client  having  once  shown  her  unmerited  kind 
ness — it  has  now  become  her  apparent  design 
to  force  upon  him  the  responsibility  of  her 
support  and  her  welfare. 

"You  know  how  often  this  is  done  in  New 
York  City,  which  is  not  only  Babylon  for  the 
adventurer  and  adventuress,  but  their  Garden 
of  Eden,  since  here  they  are  truly  at  large 
with  the  serpent.  You  are  aware  that  the 
adventuress  never  operates,  except  in  a  large 
city,  just  as  the  charlatan  of  every  profession 
operates  in  the  large  city.  Little  towns  have 
no  adventuresses  and  no  charlatans;  they  are 
not  to  be  found  there  because  there  they 
would  be  found  out.  What  I  ask  is  that  you 
protect  my  client  as  you  would  have  my 
client,  were  he  a  juryman,  help  to  protect 
innocent  men  like  you.  I  ask  then  that  this 
woman  be  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  twenty- 
five  dollars  and  be  further  sentenced  to  hard 
labor  in  the  penitentiary  for  a  term  of  one 
year. 

"No,  I  do  not  ask  that.  For  this  young 
woman  is  not  yet  a  bad  woman.  But  unless 
she  stops  right  here  in  her  career,  she  is  likely 
to  become  a  bad  woman.  I  do  ask  that  you 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     163 

sentence  her  to  pay  a  few  tears  of  penitence 
and  to  go  home,  and  there  be  strictly  confined 
to  wiser,  better  thoughts." 

When  I  had  dictated  this,  I  asked  her  to 
read  it  over  to  me;  she  did  so  in  faltering 
tones.  Then  I  bade  her  good  morning,  said 
there  was  no  more  work  for  the  day,  instructed 
her  that  when  she  was  through  with  copying 
the  work  already  assigned,  the  head-clerk 
would  receive  it  and  pay  for  it,  and  requested 
her  to  return  at  ten  o'clock  this  morning. 

This  morning  she  did  not  come.  I  called 
up  her  address;  she  had  left  there.  Nothing 
was  known  of  her. 

If  you  ever  write  to  her  again — !  And 
since  you,  without  visible  means  of  support, 
are  so  fond  of  sending  cheques  to  everybody, 
why  not  send  one  to  me!  Am  I  to  go  on  de 
fending  you  for  nothing? 

Your  obedient  counsel  and  turtle, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 

BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

DEAR  BEN:  M^  28>  ^I2' 

What  have  you  done,  what  have  you  done, 
what  have  you  done!  That  green  child 


164     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

turned  loose  in  New  York,  not  knowing  a 
soul  and  not  having  a  cent!  Suppose  any 
thing  happens  to  her — how  shall  I  feel  then! 
Of  course,  you  meant  well,  but  my  dear 
fellow,  wasn't  it  a  terrible,  an  inhuman  thing 
to  do!  Just  imagine — but  then  you  can't 
imagine,  can't  imagine,  can't  imagine! 

BEVERLEY. 


BENJAMIN   DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY   SANDS 

May  29,  IQI2. 
MY  DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

I  am  sorry  that  my  bungling  efforts  in  your 
behalf  should  have  proved  such  a  miscalcula 
tion.     But  as  you  forgive  everybody  sooner  or 
later  perhaps  you  will  in  time  pardon  even  me. 
Your  respectful  erring  servant, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

May  50,  IQI2. 
POLLY  BOLES: 

The  sight  of  a  letter  from  me  will  cause  a 
violent  disturbance  of  your  routine  existence. 
Our  "friendship"  worked  itself  to  an  open 
and  honourable  end  about  the  time  I  went 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      165 

away  last  summer  and  showed  itself  to  be 
honest  hatred.  Since  my  return  in  the  au 
tumn  I  have  been  absorbed  in  many  delight 
ful  ways  and  you,  doubtless,  have  been  loy 
ally  imbedded  in  the  end  of  the  same  frayed 
sofa,  with  your  furniture  arranged  as  for  years 
past,  and  with  the  same  breastpin  on  your 
constant  heart.  Whenever  we  have  met,  you 
have  let  me  know  that  the  formidable  back 
of  Polly  Boles  was  henceforth  to  be  turned 
on  me. 

I  write  because  I  will  not  come  to  see  you. 
My  only  motive  is  that  you  will  forward  my 
letter  to  Ben  Doolittle,  whom  you  have  so 
prejudiced  against  me,  that  I  cannot  even 
write  to  him. 

My  letter  concerns  Beverley.  You  do  not 
know  that  since  our  engagement  was  broken 
last  summer  he  has  regularly  visited  me:  we 
have  enjoyed  one  another  in  ways  that  are 
not  fetters.  Your  friendship  for  Beverley  of 
course  has  lasted  with  the  constancy  of  a 
wooden  pulpit  curved  behind  the  head  and 
shoulders  of  a  minister.  Ben  Doolittle's 
affection  for  him  is  as  splendid  a  thing  as  one 
ever  sees  in  life.  I  write  for  the  sake  of  us  all. 

Have  you  been  with  Beverley  of  late?     If 


166     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

so,  have  you  noticed  anything  peculiar?  Has 
Ben  seen  him?  Has  Ben  spoken  to  you  of  a 
change?  I  shall  describe  as  if  to  you  both 
what  occurred  to-night  during  Beverley's 
visit:  he  has  just  gone. 

As  soon  as  I  entered  the  parlours  I  dis 
covered  that  he  was  not  wholly  himself  and 
instantly  recollected  that  he  had  not  for  some 
time  seemed  perfectly  natural.  Repeatedly 
within  the  last  few  months  it  has  become  in 
creasingly  plain  that  something  preyed  upon 
his  mind.  When  I  entered  the  rooms  this 
evening,  although  he  made  a  quick,  clever 
effort  to  throw  it  off,  he  was  in  this  same  mood 
of  peculiar  brooding. 

Someone — I  shall  not  say  who — had  sent 
me  some  flowers  during  the  day.  I  took  them 
down  with  me,  as  I  often  do.  I  think  that 
Beverley,  on  account  of  his  preoccupation, 
did  not  at  first  notice  that  I  had  brought  any 
flowers;  he  remained  unaware,  I  feel  sure, 
that  I  placed  the  vase  on  the  table  near  which 
we  sat.  But  a  few  minutes  later  he  caught 
sight  of  them — a  handful  of  roses  of  the  colour 
of  the  wild-rose,  with  some  white  spray  and  a 
few  ferns. 

When  his  eyes  fell  upon  the  ferns  our  con- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      167 

versation  snapped  like  a  thread.  Painful 
silence  followed.  The  look  with  which  one 
recognises  some  object  that  persistently  an 
noys  came  into  his  eyes:  it  was  the  identical 
expression  I  had  already  remarked  when  he 
was  gazing  as  on  vacancy.  He  continued 
absorbed,  disregardful  of  my  presence,  until 
his  silence  became  discourteous.  My  inquiry 
for  the  reason  of  his  strange  action  was 
evaded  by  a  slight  laugh. 

This  evasion  irritated  me  still  more.  You 
know  I  never  trust  or  respect  people  \vho 
gloss.  His  rejoinder  was  gloss.  He  was  tak 
ing  it  for  granted  that  having  exposed  to  me 
something  he  preferred  to  conceal,  he  would 
receive  my  aid  to  cover  this  up:  I  was  to  join 
him  in  the  ceremony  of  gloss. 

As  a  sign  of  my  displeasure  I  carried  the 
flowers  across  the  room  to  the  mantelpiece. 

But  the  gaiety  and  carelessness  of  the  even 
ing  were  gone.  When  two  people  have  known 
each  other  long  and  intimately,  nothing  so 
quickly  separates  them  as  the  discovery  by 
one  that  just  beneath  the  surface  of  their 
intercourse  the  other  keeps  something  hidden. 
The  carelessness  of  the  evening  was  gone,  a 
sense  of  restraint  followed  which  each  of  us 


168     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

recognised  by  periods  of  silence.  To  escape 
from  this  I  soon  afterward  for  a  moment 
went  up  to  my  room. 

I  now  come  to  the  incident  which  explains 
why  I  think  my  letter  should  be  sent  to  Ben 
Doolittle. 

As  I  re-entered  the  parlours  Beverley  was 
standing  before  the  vase  of  flowers  on  the 
mantelpiece.  His  back  was  turned  toward 
me.  He  did  not  see  me  or  hear  me.  I  was 
about  to  speak  when  I  discovered  that  he  was 
muttering  to  himself  and  making  gestures  at 
the  ferns.  Fragments  of  expression  straggled 
from  him  and  the  names  of  strange  people. 
I  shall  not  undertake  to  write  down  his  in 
coherent  mutterings,  yet  such  was  the  stimu 
lation  of  my  memory  due  to  shock  that  I 
recall  many  of  these. 

You  ought  to  know  by  this  time  that  I  am 
by  nature  fearless;  yet  something  swifter  and 
stranger  than  fear  took  possession  of  me  and 
I  slipped  from  the  parlours  and  ran  half-way 
up  the  stairs.  Then,  with  a  stronger  dread 
of  what  otherwise  might  happen,  I  returned. 

Beverley  was  sitting  where  I  had  left  him 
when  I  quitted  the  parlours  first.  He  had  the 
air  of  merely  expecting  my  re-entrance. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      169 

I  think  this  is  what  shocked  me  most:  that 
he  could  play  two  parts  with  such  ready  con 
cealment,  successful  cunning. 

Now  that  he  is  gone  and  the  whole  evening 
becomes  so  vivid  a  memory,  I  am  urged  by  a 
feeling  of  uneasiness  to  reach  Ben  Doolittle 
with  this  letter,  since  there  is  no  one  else  to 
whom  I  can  turn. 

Beverley  left  abruptly;  my  manner  may 
have  forced  that.  Certainly  for  the  first  time 
in  all  these  years  we  separated  with  a  sudden 
feeling  of  positive  anger.  If  he  calls  again,  I 
shall  be  excused. 

Act   as   you   think  best.     And   remember, 
please,  under  what  stress  of  feeling  I  must  be 
1  to  write  another  letter  to  you.     To  you! 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN  TO  POLLY  BOLES 
[A  second  letter  enclosed  in  the  preceding  one] 

My  letter  of  last  night  was  written  from 
impulse.  This  morning  I  was  so  ill  that  I 
asked  Dr.  Marigold  to  come  to  see  me.  I 
had  to  explain.  He  looked  grave  and  finally 
asked  whether  he  might  speak  to  Dr.  Mullen: 
he  thought  it  advisable;  Dr.  Mullen  could 


1 70     THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

better  counsel  what  should  be  done.  Later 
he  called  me  up  to  inquire  whether  Dr.  Mullen 
and  he  could  call  together. 

Dr.  Mullen  asked  me  to  go  over  what  had 
occurred  the  evening  before.  Dr.  Marigold 
and  he  went  across  the  room  and  consulted. 
Dr.  Mullen  then  asked  me  who  Beverley's 
physician  was.  I  said  I  thought  Beverley 
had  never  been  ill  in  his  life.  He  asked 
whether  Ben  Doolittle  knew  or  had  better 
not  be  told. 

Again  I  leave  the  matter  to  Ben  and  you. 

But  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  put 
down  on  a  separate  paper  the  questions  which 
Dr.  Mullen  asked  with  my  reply  to  each. 
For  I  do  not  wish  Ben  Doolittle  to  think  I 
said  anything  about  Beverley  that  I  would 
be  unwilling  for  him  or  for  anyone  else  to 
know. 

TILLY  SNOWDEN. 


POLLY    BOLES    TO    TILLY    SNOWDEN 

June  2,  IQI2. 
TILLY  SNOWDEN: 

A  telegram  from  Louisville  has  reached  me 
this  morning,  announcing  the  dangerous   ill- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      171 

ness  of  my  mother,  and  I  go  to  her  by  the 
earliest  train.  I  have  merely  to  say  that  I 
have  sent  your  letters  to  Ben. 

I  shall  add,  however,  that  the  formidable 
back  of  Polly  Boles  seems  to  absorb  a  good 
deal  of  your  attention.  At  least  my  for 
midable  back  is  a  safe  back.  It  is  not  an 
uncontrollable  back.  It  may  be  spoken  of, 
but  at  least  it  is  never  publicly  talked  about. 
It  does  not  lead  me  into  temptation;  it  is  not 
a  scandal.  On  the  whole,  I  console  myself 
with  the  knowledge  that  very  few  women 
have  gotten  into  trouble  on  account  of  their 
backs.  If  history  speaks  truly,  quite  a  few 
notorious  ones  have  come  to  grief — but  you 
will  understand. 

POLLY  BOLES. 


POLLY  BOLES  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

June  2,  IQI2. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  find  bad  news  does  not  come  single.  I 
have  a  telegram  from  Louisville  with  the 
news  of  my  mother's  illness  and  start  by  the 
first  train.  Just  after  receiving  it  I  had  a 
letter  from  Tilly,  which  I  enclose. 


172     THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

I,  too,  have  noticed  for  some  time  that 
Beverley  has  been  troubled.  Have  you  seen 
him  of  late?  Have  you  noticed  anything 
wrong?  What  do  you  think  of  Tilly's  letter? 
Write  me  at  once.  I  should  go  to  see  him 
myself  but  for  the  news  from  Louisville.  I 
have  always  thought  Beverley  health  itself. 
Would  it  be  possible  for  him  to  have  a  break 
down?  I  shall  be  wretched  about  him  until 
I  hear  from  you.  What  do  you  make  out  of 
the  questions  Dr.  Mullen  asked  Tilly  and 
her  replies? 

Are  you  going  to  write  to  me  every  day 
while  I  am  gone? 

POLLY. 


BEN   DOOLITTLE   TO   PHILLIPS    &   FAULDS 

June  4,  IQI2. 
DEAR  SIRS: 

I  desire  to  recall  myself  to  you  as  a  former 
Louisville  patron  of  your  flourishing  business 
and  also  as  more  recently  the  New  York 
lawyer  who  brought  unsuccessful  suit  against 
you  on  behalf  of  one  of  his  clients. 

You  will  find  enclosed  my  cheque,  and  you 
are  requested  to  send  the  value  of  it  in  long- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      173 

stemmed   red  roses  to  Miss  Boles — the  same 
address  as  in  former  years. 

If  the  stems  of  your  roses  do  not  happen  to 
be  long,  make  them  long.  (You  know  the 
wires.) 

Very  truly  yours, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 

BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  4,  1912. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

You  will  have  had  my  telegram  of  sympathy 
with  you  in  your  mother's  illness,  and  of  my 
unspeakable  surprise  that  you  could  go  away 
without  letting  me  see  you. 

Have  I  seen  Beverley  of  late?  I  have  seen 
him  early  and  late.  And  I  have  read  Tilly's 
much  mystified  and  much-mistaken  letters. 
If  Beverley  is  crazy,  a  Kentucky  cornfield  is 
crazy,  all  roast  beef  is  a  lunatic,  every  Irish 
potato  has  a  screw  loose  and  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  is  badly  balanced. 

I  happen  to  hold  the  key  to  Beverley's 
comic  behaviour  in  Tilly's  parlour. 

As  to  the  questions  put  to  Tilly  by  that 
dilution  of  all  fools,  Claude  Mullen — your 


174     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

favourite  nerve  specialist  and  former  suitor — 
I  have  just  this  to  say: 

All  these  mutterings  of  Beverley — during 
one  of  the  gambols  in  Tilly's  parlours,  which 
he  naturally  reserves  for  me — all  these  frag 
mentary  expressions  relate  to  real  people  and 
to  actual  things  that  you  and  Tilly  have  never 
known  anything  about. 

Men  must  not  bother  their  women  by  tell 
ing  them  everything.  That,  by  the  way,  has 
been  an  old  bone  of  contention  between  you 
and  me,  Polly,  my  chosen  rib — a  silent  bone, 
but  still  sometimes,  I  fear,  a  slightly  rheumatic 
bone.  But  when  will  a  woman  learn  that  her 
heavenly  charm  to  a  man  lies  in  the  thought 
that  he  can  place  her  and  keep  her  in  a  world, 
into  which  his  troubles  cannot  come.  Thus 
he  escapes  from  them  himself.  Let  him  once  tell 
his  troubles  to  her  and  she  becomes  the  mirror 
of  them — and  possibly  the  worst  kind  of 
mirror. 

Beverley  has  told  Tilly  nothing  of  all  this 
entanglement  with  ferns,  I  have  not  told  you. 
All  four  of  us  have  thereby  been  the  happier. 

But  through  Tilly's  misunderstanding  those 
two  mischief-making  charlatans,  Marigold  and 
Mullen,  have  now  come  into  the  case;  and  it 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      175 

is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  I  deal  with 
these  two  gentlemen  at  once;  to  that  end  I 
cut  this  letter  short  and  start  after  them. 

Oh,   but   why   did   you   go   away    without 
good-bye  ? 

BEN. 


BEN  DOOLITTLE  TO  POLLY  BOLES 

June  5,  1912. 
DEAR  POLLY: 

I  go  on  where  I  left  off  yesterday. 

I  did  what  I  thought  I  should  never  do  dur 
ing  my  long  and  memorable  life:  I  called  on 
your  esteemed  ex-acquaintance,  Dr.  Claude 
Mullen.  I  explained  how  I  came  to  do  so, 
and  I  desired  of  him  an  opinion  as  to  Beverley. 
He  suggested  that  more  evidence  would  be 
required  before  an  opinion  could  be  given. 
What  evidence,  I  suggested,  and  how  to  be 
gotten?  He  thought  the  case  was  one  that 
could  best  be  further  studied  if  the  person 
were  put  under  secret  observation — since  he 
revealed  himself  apparently  only  when  alone. 
I  urged  him  to  take  control  of  the  matter, 
took  upon  myself,  as  Beverley's  friend,  au 
thority  to  empower  him  to  go  on.  He  ad- 


176     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

vised  that  a  dictograph  be  installed  in  Bever- 
ley's  room.  It  would  be  a  good  idea  to  send 
him  a  good  big  bunch  of  ferns  also:  the  ferns, 
the  dictograph,  Beverley  alone  with  them — 
a  clear  field. 

I  explained  toT  Beverley,  and  we  went  out 
and  bought  a  dictograph,  and  he  concealed 
it  where,  of  course,  he  could  not  find  it! 

In  the  evening  we  had  a  glorious  dinner, 
returned  to  his  rooms,  and  while  I  smoked  in 
silence,  he,  in  great  peace  of  mind  and  pro 
found  satisfaction  with  the  world  in  general, 
poured  into  the  dictograph  his  long  pent-up 
opinion  of  our  two  dear  old  friends,  Marigold 
and  Mullen.  He  roared  it  into  the  machine, 
shouted  it,  raved  it,  soliloquised  it.  I  had 
in  advance  requested  him  to  add  my  opinion 
of  your  former  suitor.  Each  of  us  had  long 
been  waiting  for  so  good  a  chance  and  he  took 
full  advantage  of  the  opportunity.  The  next 
morning  I  notified  Dr.  Mullen  that  Beverley 
had  raved  during  the  night,  and  that  the 
machine  was  full  of  his  queer  things. 

At  the  appointed  hour  this  morning  we 
assembled  in  Beverley' s  rooms.  I  had  cleared 
away  his  big  centre  table,  all  the  rubbish  of 
papers  amid  which  he  lives,  including  some 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      177 

invaluable  manuscripts  of  his  worthless  novels. 
I  had  taken  the  cylinders  out  of  the  dictograph 
and  had  put  them  in  a  dictophone,  and  there 
on  the  table  lay  that  Pandora's  box  of  infor 
mation  with  a  horn  attached  to  it. 

Dr.  Mullen  arrived,  bringing  with  him  the 
truly  great  New  York  nerve  specialist  and 
scientist  whom  he  relies  upon  to  pilot  him  in  dif 
ficult  cases.  Dr.  Marigold  had  brought  the 
truly  great  physician  and  scientist  who  pilots 
him.  At  Beverley's  request,  I  had  invited  the 
president  of  his  Club,  and  he  had  brought 
along  two  Club  affinities;  three  gossips. 

I  sent  Beverley  to  Brooklyn  for  the  day. 

We  seated  ourselves,  and  on  the  still  air 
of  the  room  that  unearthly  asthmatic  horn 
began  to  deliver  Beverley's  opinion.  Instant 
ly  there  was  an  uproar.  There  was  a  scuffle. 
It  was  almost  a  general  fight.  Drs.  Mari 
gold  and  Mullen  had  jumped  to  their  feet  and 
shouted  their  furious  protests.  One  of  them 
started  to  leave  the  room.  He  couldn't,  I  had 
locked  the  door.  One  slammed  at  the  ma 
chine — he  was  restrained — everybody  else 
wanted  to  hear  Beverley  out.  And  amid  the 
riot  Beverley  kept  on  his  peaceful  way,  grind 
ing  out  his  healthy  vituperation. 


178     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

That  will  do,  Polly,  my  dear.  You  will 
never  hear  anything  more  of  Beverley's  being 
in  bad  health — not  from  those  two  rear- 
admirals  of  diagnosis — away  in  the  rear. 
Another  happy  result;  it  saves  him  at  last 
from  Tilly.  Her  act  was  one  that  he  will 
never  forgive.  His  act  she  will  never  forgive. 
The  last  tie  between  them  is  severed  now. 

But  all  this  is  nothing,  nothing,  nothing! 
I  am  lost  without  you. 

BEN. 

P.  S.  Now  that  I  have  disposed  of  two  of 
Beverley's  detractors,  in  a  day  or  two  I  am 
going  to  demolish  the  third  one — an  English 
man  over  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  I  have  long  waited  for  the  chance  to 
write  him  just  one  letter:  he's  the  chief 
calumniator. 


POLLY  BOLES  TO  BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE 

Louisville,  Kentucky, 
June  9,  IQI2. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  cannot  tell  you  what  a  relief  it  brought 
me  to  hear  that  Beverley  is  well.  Of  course 
it  was  all  bound  to  be  a  mistake. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      179 

At  the  same  time  your  letters  have  made 
me  very  unhappy.  Was  it  quite  fair?  Was 
it  open?  Was  it  quite  what  anyone  would 
have  expected  of  Beverley  and  you? 

Nothing  leaves  me  so  undone  as  what  I 
am  not  used  to  in  people.  I  do  not  like  sur 
prises  and  I  do  not  like  changes.  I  feel  help 
less  unless  I  can  foresee  what  my  friends  will 
do  and  can  know  what  to  expect  of  them. 
Frankly,  your  letters  have  been  a  painful 
shock  to  me. 

I  foresee  one  thing:  this  will  bring  Tilly 
and  Dr.  Marigold  more  closely  together. 
She  will  feel  sorry  for  him,  and  a  woman's 
sense  of  fair  play  will  carry  her  over  to  his 
side.  You  men  do  not  know  what  fair  play 
is  or,  if  you  do,  you  don't  care.  Only  a 
woman  knows  and  cares.  Please  don't  keep 
after  Dr.  Mullen  on  my  account.  Why 
should  you  persecute  him  because  he  loved 
me? 

Dr.  Marigold  will  want  revenge  on  Bever 
ley,  and  he  will  have  his  revenge — in  some 
way. 

Your  letters  have  left  me  wretched.  If 
you  surprise  me  in  this  way,  how  might  you 
not  surprise  me  still  further?  Oh,  if  we 


i8o     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

could  only  understand  everybody  perfectly, 
and  if  everything  would  only  settle  and  stay 
settled ! 

My  mother  is  much  improved  and  she  has 
urged  me — the  doctor  says  her  recovery, 
though  sure,  will  be  gradual — to  spend  at 
least  a  month  with  her.  To-day  I  have  de 
cided  to  do  so.  It  will  be  of  so  much  interest 
to  her  if  I  have  my  wedding  clothes  made 
here.  You  know  how  few  they  will  be.  My 
dresses  last  so  long,  and  I  dislike  changes. 
I  have  found  my  same  dear  old  mantua-maker 
and  she  is  delighted  and  proud.  But  she  in 
sists  that  since  I  went  to  New  York  I  have 
dropped  behind  and  that  I  will  not  do  even 
for  Louisville. 

On  my  way  to  her  I  so  enjoy  looking  at  old 
Louisville  houses,  left  among  the  new  ones. 
They  seem  so  faithful!  My  dear  old  mantua- 
maker  and  the  dear  old  houses — they  are  the 
real  Louisville. 

My  mother  joins  me  in  love  to  you. 

Sincerely  yours, 

POLLY  BOLES. 


THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      181 

BENJAMIN    DOOLITTLE    TO    EDWARD 
BLACKTHORNE 


Wall  Street,  New  York, 
June  10,  igi2. 

Edward  Blackthorne,  Esq., 
King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England. 
MY  DEAR  SIR: 

I  am  a  stranger  to  you.  I  should  have  been 
content  to  remain  a  stranger.  A  grave  matter 
which  I  have  had  no  hand  in  shaping  causes 
me  to  write  you  this  one  letter  —  there  being 
no  discoverable  likelihood  that  I  shall  ever 
feel  painfully  obliged  to  write  you  a  second. 

You  are  a  stranger  to  me.  But  you  are,  I 
have  heard,  a  great  man.  That,  of  course, 
means  that  you  are  a  famous  man,  otherwise 
I  should  never  have  heard  that  you  are  a 
great  one.  You  hold  a  very  distinguished 
place  in  your  country,  in  the  world;  people 
go  on  pilgrimages  to  you.  The  thing  that  has 
made  you  famous  and  that  attracts  pilgrims 
are  your  novels. 

I  do  not  read  novels.  They  contain,  I 
understand,  the  lives  of  imaginary  people. 


1 82      THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

I  am  satisfied  to  read  the  lives  of  actual 
people  and  I  do  read  much  biography.  One 
of  the  Lives  I  like  to  study  is  that  of  Samuel 
Johnson,  and  I  recall  just  here  some  words 
of  his  to  the  effect  that  he  did  not  feel  bound 
to  honour  a  man  who  clapped  a  hump  on  his 
shoulder  and  another  hump  on  his  leg  and 
shouted  he  was  Richard  the  Third.  I  take 
the  liberty  of  saying  that  I  share  Dr.  John 
son's  opinion  as  to  puppets,  either  on  the 
stage  or  in  fiction.  The  life  of  the  actual 
Richard  interests  me,  but  the  life  of  Shake 
speare's  Richard  doesn't.  I  should  have  liked 
to  read  the  actual  life  of  Hamlet,  Prince  of 
Denmark. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  get  a  clear  idea 
what  a  novelist  is.  The  novelists  that  I 
superficially  encounter  seem  to  have  no  clear 
idea  what  they  are  themselves.  No  two  of 
them  agree.  But  each  of  them  agrees  that 
his  duty  and  business  in  life  is  to  imagine 
things  and  then  notify  people  that  those 
things  are  true  and  that  they — people — 
should  buy  those  things  and  be  grateful  for 
them  and  look  up  to  the  superior  person  who 
concocted  them  and  wrote  them  down. 

I   have   observed   that  there   is   danger  in 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      183 

many  people  causing  any  one  person  to  think 
himself  a  superior  person  unless  he  is  a 
superior  person.  If  he  really  is  what  is 
thought  of  him,  no  harm  is  done  him.  But 
if  he  is  widely  regarded  a  superior  person 
and  is  not  a  superior  person,  harm  may  re 
sult  to  him.  For  whenever  any  person  is 
praised  beyond  his  deserts,  he  is  not  lifted 
up  by  such  praise  any  more  than  the  stature 
of  a  man  is  increased  by  thickening  the  heels 
of  his  shoes.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  apt  to 
be  lowered  by  over-praise.  For,  prodded  by 
adulation,  he  may  lay  aside  his  ordinary 
image  and  assume,  as  far  as  he  can,  the  guise 
of  some  inferior  creature  which  more  glar 
ingly  expresses  what  he  is— as  the  peacock, 
the  owl,  the  porcupine,  the  lamb,  the  bull 
dog,  the  ass.  I  have  seen  all  these.  I  have 
seen  the  strutting  peacock  novelist,  the  solemn, 
speechless  owl  novelist,  the  fretful  porcupine 
novelist,  the  spring-lamb  novelist,  the  fero 
cious,  jealous  bulldog  novelist,  and  the  sacred 
ass  novelist.  And  many  others. 

You  may  begin  to  wonder  why  I  am  led 
into  these  reflections  in  this  letter.  The 
reason  is,  I  have  been  wondering  into  what 
kind  of  inferior  creature  your  fame — your 


1 84     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

over-praise — has  lowered  you.  Frankly,  I 
perfectly  know;  I  will  not  name  the  animal. 
But  I  feel  sure  that  he  is  a  highly  offensive 
small  beast. 

If  you  feel  disposed  to  read  further,  I  shall 
explain. 

I  have  in  my  legal  possession  three  letters 
of  yours.  They  were  written  to  a  young  gentle 
man  whom  I  have  known  now  for  a  good  many 
years,  whose  character  I  know  about  as  well 
as  any  one  man  can  know  another's,  and  for 
whom  increasing  knowledge  has  always  led 
me  to  feel  increasing  respect.  The  young 
man  is  Mr.  Beverley  Sands.  You  may  now 
realise  what  I  am  coming  to. 

The  first  of  these  letters  of  yours  reveals 
you  as  a  stranger  seeking  the  acquaintance 
of  Mr.  Sands — to  a  certain  limit:  you  asked 
of  him  a  courtesy  and  you  offered  courtesies 
in  exchange.  That  is  common  enough  and 
natural,  and  fair,  and  human.  But  what  I 
have  noticed  is  your  doing  this  with  the  air 
of  the  superior  person.  Mr.  Sands,  being  a 
novelist,  is  of  course  a  superior  person. 
Therefore,  you  felt  called  upon  to  introduce 
yourself  to  him  as  a  more  superior  person. 
That  is,  you  condescended  to  be  gracious. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      185 

You  made  it  a  virtue  in  you  to  ask  a  favour 
of  him.  You  expected  him  to  be  delighted 
that  you  allowed  him  to  serve  you. 

In  the  second  letter  you  go  further.  He 
wafted  some  incense  toward  you  and  you 
got  on  your  knees  to  this  incense.  You  get 
up  and  offer  him  more  courtesies — all  cour 
tesies.  Because  he  praised  you,  you  even 
wish  him  to  visit  you. 

Now  the  third  letter.  The  favour  you 
asked  of  Mr.  Sands  was  that  he  send  you 
some  ferns.  By  no  fault  of  his  except  too 
much  confidence  in  the  agents  he  employed 
(he  over-trusts  everyone  and  over-trusted 
you),  by  no  other  fault  of  his  the  ferns  were 
not  sent.  You  waited,  time  passed,  you 
grew  impatient,  you  grew  suspicious  of  Mr. 
Sands,  you  felt  slighted,  you  became  piqued 
in  your  vanity,  wounded  in  your  self-love, 
you  became  resentful,  you  became  furious, 
you  became  revengeful,  you  became  abusive. 
You  told  him  that  he  had  never  meant  to 
keep  his  word,  that  you  had  kicked  his  books 
out  of  your  library,  that  he  might  profitably 
study  the  moral  sensitiveness  of  a  head  of 
cabbage. 

During  the  summer  American  tourists  vis- 


1 86     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

ited  you — pilgrims  of  your  fame.  You  took 
advantage  of  their  visit  to  promulgate  myste 
riously  your  hostility  to  Mr.  Sands.  Not  by 
one  explicit  word,  you  understand.  Your 
exalted  imagination  merely  lied  on  him,  and 
you  entrusted  to  other  imaginations  the  duty 
of  scattering  broadcast  your  noble  lie.  They 
did  this — some  of  them  happening  not  to  be 
friends  of  Mr.  Sands — and  as  a  result  of  the 
false  light  you  threw  upon  his  character,  he 
now  in  the  minds  of  many  persons  rests  under 
a  cloud.  And  that  cloud  is  never  going  to  be 
dispelled. 

?!  Enclosed  you  will  please  find  copies  of  these 
three  letters  of  yours;  would  you  mind  read 
ing  them  over?  And  you  will  find  also  a 
packet  of  letters  which  will  enable  you  to 
understand  why  the  ferns  never  reached  you 
and  the  whole  entanglement  of  the  case. 
And  finally,  you  will  find  enclosed  a  brief  with 
which,  were  I  to  appear  in  Court  against  you, 
as  Mr.  Sands's  lawyer,  I  should  hold  you  up 
to  public  view  as  what  you  are. 

I  shall  merely  add  that  I  have  often  met 
you  in  the  courtroom  as  the  kind  of  criminal 
who  believes  without  evidence  and  who  dis 
trusts  without  reason;  who  is,  therefore,  ready 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      187 

to  blast  a  character  upon  suspicion.  If  he 
dislikes  the  person,  in  the  absence  of  evidence 
against  him,  he  draws  upon  the  dark  traits 
of  his  own  nature  to  furnish  the  evidence. 

I  have  written  because  I  am  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Sands. 

I  am,  as  to  you, 

Merely, 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE. 


EDWARD    BLACKTHORNE   TO    BENJAMIN 
DOOLITTLE 

King  Alfred's  Wood, 
Warwickshire,  England, 
June  21,  IQI2. 

Benjamin  Doolittle, 
150  Wall  Street, 
New  York  City. 
MY  DEAR  SIR: 

You  state  in  your  letter,  which  I  have  just 
laid  down,  that  you  are  a  stranger  to  me. 
There  is  no  conceivable  reason  why  I  should 
wish  to  offer  you  the  slightest  rudeness — even 
that  of  crossing  your  word — yet  may  I  say, 
that  I  know  you  perfectly  ?  If  you  had  unfortu- 


1 88     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

nately  read  some  of  my  very  despicable  novels, 
you  might  have  found,  scattered  here  and 
there,  everything  that  you  have  said  in  your 
letter,  and  almost  in  your  very  words.  That 
is,  I  have  two  or  three  times  drawn  your  por 
trait,  or  at  least  drawn  at  it;  and  thus  while 
you  are  indeed  a  stranger  to  me  in  name,  I  feel 
bound  to  say  that  you  are  an  old  acquaintance 
in  nature. 

You  cannot  for  a  moment  imagine — how 
ever,  you  despise  imagination  and  I  withdraw 
the  offensive  word — you  cannot  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  I  can  have  any  motive  in  being 
discourteous,  and  I  shall,  therefore,  go  on  to 
say,  but  only  with  your  permission,  that  the 
first  time  I  attempted  to  sketch  you,  was  in  a 
very  early  piece  of  work;  I  was  a  youthful 
novelist,  at  the  outset  of  my  career.  I  pro 
jected  a  story  entitled:  "  The  Married  Cross- 
Purposes  of  Ned  and  Sal  Blivvens"  I  feel 
bound  to  say  that  you  in  your  letter  pleasantly 
remind  me  of  the  Sal  Blivvens  of  my  story. 
In  Sal's  eyes  poor  Ned's  failing  was  this:  as 
twenty-one  human  shillings  he  never  made  an 
exact  human  guinea — his  shillings  ran  a  few 
pence  over,  or  they  fell  a  few  pence  short. 
That  is,  Ned  never  did  just  enough  of  any- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      189 

thing,  or  said  just  enough,  but  either  too  much 
or  too  little  to  suit  Sal.  He  never  had  just  one 
idea  about  any  one  thing,  but  two  or  three 
ideas;  he  never  felt  in  just  one  way  about  any 
one  thing,  but  had  mixed  feelings,  a  variety 
of  feelings.  He  was  not  a  yard  measure  or 
a  pint  measure  or  a  pound  measure;  he  over 
flowed  or  he  didn't  fill,  and  any  one  thing  in 
him  always  ran  into  other  things  in  him. 

Being  a  young  novelist  I  was  not  satisfied 
to  offer  Sal  to  the  world  on  her  own  account, 
but  I  must  try  to  make  her  more  credible  and 
formidable  by  following  her  into  the  next 
generation,  and  giving  her  a  son  who  inherited 
her  traits.  Thus  I  had  Tommy  Blivvens. 
When  Tommy  was  old  enough  to  receive  his 
first  allowance  of  Christmas  pudding,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  take  the  pudding  to  pieces.  He 
picked  out  all  the  raisins  and  made  a  little 
pile  of  them.  And  made  a  little  separate  pile 
of  the  currants,  and  another  pile  of  the  al 
monds,  and  another  of  the  citron,  or  of  what 
ever  else  there  was  to  separate.  Then  in  pro 
found  satisfaction  he  ate  them,  pile  by  pile, 
as  a  philosopher  of  the  sure. 

Thus — and  I  insist  I  mean  no  disrespect — 
your  letter  does  revive  for  me  a  little  innocent 


190     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

laughter  at  my  early  literary  vision  of  a 
human  baggage — friend  of  my  youthful  days 
and  artistic  enthusiasm — Sal  Blivvens.  I  ar 
ranged  that  when  Ned  died,  his  neighbours  all 
felt  sorry  and  wished  him  a  green  turf  for  his 
grave.  Sal,  I  felt  sure,  survived  him  as  one 
who  all  her  life  walks  past  every  human  heart 
and  enters  none — being  always  dead-sure, 
always  dead-right;  for  the  human  heart  re 
jects  perfection  in  any  human  being. 

I  recognise  you  as  belonging  to  the  large 
tough  family  of  the  human  cocksures.  Sal 
Blivvens  belonged  to  it — dead-sure,  dead- 
right,  every  time.  We  have  many  of  the  cock 
sures  in  England,  you  must  have  many  of 
them  in  the  United  States.  The  cocksures  are 
people  who  have  no  dim  borderland  around 
their  minds,  no  twilight  between  day  and 
darkness.  They  see  everything  as  they  see  a 
highly  coloured  rug  on  a  well-lighted  floor. 
There  is  either  rug  or  no  rug,  either  floor  or  no 
floor.  No  part  of  the  floor  could  possibly  be 
rug  and  no  part  of  the  rug  could  possibly  be 
floor.  A  cocksure,  as  a  lawyer,  is  the  natural 
prosecuting  attorney  of  human  nature's  natu 
ral  misgivings  and  wiser  doubts  and  nobler 
errors.  How  the  American  cocksures  of  their 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      191 

day  despised  the  man  Washington,  who  often 
prayed  for  guidance;  with  what  contempt 
they  blasted  the  character  of  your  Abraham 
Lincoln,  whose  patient  soul  inhabited  the 
border  of  a  divine  disquietude  and  whose 
public  life  was  the  patient  study  of  hesitation. 

I  have  taken  notice  of  the  peculiarly  Amer 
ican  character  of  your  cocksureness :  it  mag 
nifies  and  qualifies  a  man  to  step  by  the  mile, 
to  sit  down  by  the  acre,  to  utter  things  by  the 
ton.  Do  you  happen  to  know  Michael  An- 
gelo's  Moses?  I  always  think  of  an  American 
cocksure  as  looking  like  Michael  Angelo's 
Moses — colossal  law-giver,  a  hyper-stupendous 
fellow.  And  I  have  often  thought  that  a 
regiment  of  American  cocksures  would  be  the 
most  terrific  spectacle  on  a  battlefield  that  the 
rest  of  the  human  race  could  ever  face.  Just 
now  it  has  occurred  to  me  that  it  was  your 
great  Emerson  who  spoke  best  on  the  weak 
ness  of  the  superlative — the  cocksure  is  the 
human  superlative. 

As  to  your  letter:  You  declare  you  know 
nothing  about  novels,  but  your  arraignment 
of  the  novelist  is  exact.  You  are  dead-sure 
that  you  are  perfectly  right  about  me.  Your 
arraignment  of  me  is  exact.  You  are  con- 


192     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

scious  of  no  more  moral  perturbation  as  to 
justice  than  exists  in  a  monkey  wrench.  But 
that  is  the  nature  of  the  cocksure — his  con 
clusions  have  to  him  the  validity  of  a  hard 
ware  store. 

This,  however,  is  nothing.  I  clear  it  away 
in  order  to  tell  you  that  I  am  filled  with  ad 
miration  of  your  loyalty  to  your  friend,  and 
of  the  savage  ferocity  with  which  you  attack 
me  as  his  enemy.  That  makes  you  a  friend 
worth  having,  and  I  wish  you  were  to  be  num 
bered  among  mine;  there  are  none  too  many 
such  in  this  world.  Next,  I  wish  to  assure 
you  that  I  have  studied  your  brief  against  me 
and  confess  that  you  have  made  out  the  case. 
I  fell  into  a  grave  mistake,  I  wronged  your 
friend  deeply,  I  hope  not  irreparably,  and  it 
was  a  poor,  sorry,  shabby  business.  I  am 
about  to  write  to  Mr.  Sands.  If  he  is  what 
you  say  he  is,  then  in  an  instant  he  will  forgive 
me — though  you  never  may.  I  shall  ask  him, 
as  I  could  not  have  asked  him  before,  whether 
he  will  not  come  to  visit  me.  My  house,  my 
hospitality,  all  that  I  have  and  all  that  I  am, 
shall  be  his.  I  shall  take  every  step  possible 
to  undo  what  I  thoughtlessly,  impulsively  did. 
I  shall  write  to  the  President  of  his  Club. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      193 

One  exception  is  filed  to  a  specification  in 
your  brief:  no  such  things  took  place  in  my 
garden  upon  the  visit  of  the  American  tour 
ists,  as  you  declare.  I  did  not  promulgate 
any  mysterious  hostility  to  Mr.  Sands.  You 
tell  me  that  among  those  tourists  were  per 
sons  hostile  to  Mr.  Sands.  It  was  these  hostile 
persons  who  misinterpreted  and  exaggerated 
whatever  took  place.  You  knew  these  per 
sons  to  be  enemies  of  Mr.  Sands's  and  then 
you  accepted  their  testimony  as  true — being 
a  cocksure. 

A  final  word  to  you.  Your  whole  char 
acter  and  happiness  rests  upon  the  belief  that 
you  see  life  clearly  and  judge  rightly  the 
fellow-beings  whom  you  know.  Those  you 
doubt  ought  to  be  doubted  and  those  you 
trust  ought  to  be  trusted!  Now  I  have 
travelled  far  enough  on  life's  road  to  have 
passed  its  many  human  figures — perhaps  all 
the  human  types  that  straggle  along  it  in 
their  many  ways.  No  figures  on  that  road 
have  been  more  noticeable  to  me  than  here 
and  there  a  man  in  whom  I  have  discerned  a 
broken  cocksure. 

You  say  you  like  biography:  do  you  like 
to  read  the  Life  of  Robert  Burns?  And  I 


194     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

wonder  whether  these  words  of  his  have  ever 
guided  you  in  your  outlook  upon  life: 

"  Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man 

To  step  aside  is  human" 

I  thank  you  again.  I  wish  you  well.  And 
I  hope  that  no  experience,  striking  at  you 
out  of  life's  uncertainties,  may  ever  leave 
you  one  of  those  noticeable  men — a  broken 
cocksure. 

Your  deeply  obliged  and  very  grateful,  ** 
EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE. 

BENJAMIN  DOOLITTLE  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

June  30,  IQI2. 
DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

About  a  month  ago  I  took  it  upon  myself 
to  write  the  one  letter  that  had  long  been 
raging  in  my  mind  to  Edward  Blackthorne. 
And  I  sent  him  all  the  fern  letters.  And  then 
I  drew  up  the  whole  case  and  prosecuted  him 
as  your  lawyer. 

Of  course  I  meant  my  letter  to  be  an  in 
fernal  machine  that  would  blow  him  to  pieces. 
He  merely  inspected  it,  removed  the  fuse  and 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      195 

inserted  a  crank,  and  turned  it  into  a  music- 
box  to  grind  out  his  praises. 

And  then  the  kind  of  music  he  ground  out 
for  me. 

All  day  I  have  been  ashamed  to  stand  up 
and  I've  been  ashamed  to  sit  down.  He  told 
me  that  my  letter  reminded  him  of  a  char 
acter  in  his  first  novel — a  woman  called  Sal 
Bliwens.  ME — Sal  Bliwens! 

But  of  what  use  is  it  for  us  poor,  common- 
clay,  rough,  ordinary  men  who  have  no 
imagination — of  what  use  is  it  for  us  to 
attack  you  superior  fellows  who  have  it,  have 
imagination?  You  are  the  Russians  of  the 
human  mind,  and  when  attacked  on  your 
frontiers,  you  merely  retreat  into  a  vast,  un 
known,  uninvadable  country.  The  further 
you  retire  toward  the  interior  of  your  mys 
terious  kingdom,  the  nearer  you  seem  to 
approach  the  fortresses  of  your  strength. 

I  am  wiser — if  no  better.  If  ever  again  I 
feel  like  attacking  any  stranger  with  a  letter, 
I  shall  try  to  ascertain  beforehand  whether 
he  is  an  ordinary  man  like  me  or  a  genius. 
If  he  is  a  genius,  I  am  going  to  let  him  alone. 

Yet,  damn  me  if  I,  too,  wouldn't  like  to 
see  your  man  Blackthorne  now.  Ask  him 


196     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

some  time  whether  a  short  visit  from  Ben 
jamin  Doolittle  could  be  arranged  on  any 
terms  of  international  agreement. 

Now  for  something  on  my  level  of  ordinary 
life!  A  day  or  two  ago  I  was  waiting  in  front 
of  the  residence  of  one  of  my  uptown  clients, 
a  few  doors  from  the  residence  of  your  friend 
Dr.  Marigold.  While  I  waited,  he  came  out 
on  the  front  steps  with  Dr.  Mullen.  As  I 
drove  past,  I  leaned  far  out  and  made  them 
a  magnificent  sweeping  bow:  one  can  afford 
to  be  forgiving  and  magnanimous  after  he 
settled  things  to  his  satisfaction.  They  did 
not  return  the  bow  but  exchanged  quiet 
smiles.  I  confess  the  smiles  have  rankled. 
They  seemed  like  saying:  he  bows  best  who 
bows  last. 

You  are  the  best  thing  in  New  York  to  me 
since  Polly  went  away.  Without  you  both 
it  would  come  near  to  being  one  vast  solitude. 
BEN  (alias  Sal  Blivvens). 

BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BENJAMIN    DOOLITTLE 


DEAR  BEN: 

I  wrote  you  this  morning  upon  receipt  of 
your  letter  telling  me  of  your  own  terrific 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      197 

letter  to  Mr.  Blackthorne  and  of  your  merci 
less  arraignment  of  him.  Let  me  say  again 
that  I  wish  to  pour  out  my  gratitude  to  you 
for  your  motives  and  also,  well,  also  my  regret 
at  your  action.  Somehow  I  have  been  re 
minded  of  Voltaire's  saying:  he  had  a  brother 
who  was  such  a  fool  that  he  started  out  to  be 
perfect;  as  a  consequence  the  world  knows 
nothing  of  Voltaire's  brother:  it  knows  very 
well  Voltaire  with  his  faults. 

The  mail  of  yesterday  which  brought  you 
Mr.  Blackthorne's  reply  to  your  arraignment 
brought  me  also  a  letter:  he  must  have  written 
to  us  both  instantly.  His  letter  is  the  only 
one  that  I  cannot  send  you;  you  would  not 
desire  to  read  it.  You  are  too  big  and  gen 
erous,  too  warmly  human,  too  exuberantly 
vital,  to  care  to  lend  ear  to  a  great  man's 
chagrin  and  regret  for  an  impulsive  mistake. 
You  are  not  Cassius  to  carp  at  Caesar. 

Now  this  afternoon  a  second  letter  comes 
from  Mr.  Blackthorne  and  that  I  enclose:  it 
will  do  you  good  to  read  it — it  is  not  a  black 
passing  cloud,  it  is  steady  human  sunlight. 

BEVERLEY. 


198     THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

[Enclosed  letter  from  Edward  Blackthorn e] 

MY  DEAR  MR.  SANDS: 

I  follow  up  my  letter  of  yesterday  with  the 
unexpected  tidings  of  to-day.  I  am  willing 
to  believe  that  these  will  interest  you  as 
associated  with  your  coming  visit. 

Hodge  is  dead.  His  last  birthday,  his  final 
natal  eclipse,  has  bowled  him  over  and  left 
him  darkened  for  good.  He  can  trouble  us 
no  more,  but  will  now  do  his  part  as  mould 
for  the  rose  of  York  and  the  rose  of  Lancaster. 
He  will  help  to  make  a  mound  for  some  other 
Englishman's  ferns.  When  you  come — and 
I  know  you  will  come — we  shall  drink  a  cup 
of  tea  in  the  garden  to  his  peaceful  memory — 
and  to  his  troubled  memory  for  Latin. 

I  am  now  waiting  for  you.  Come,  out  of 
your  younger  world  and  with  your  youth  to 
an  older  world  and  to  an  older  man.  And  let 
each  of  us  find  in  our  meeting  some  presage 
of  an  alliance  which  ought  to  grow  always 
closer  in  the  literatures  of  the  two  nations. 
Their  literatures  hold  their  ideals;  and  if  their 
ideals  touch  and  mingle,  then  nothing  practi 
cal  can  long  keep  them  far  apart.  If  two  oak 
trees  reach  one  another  with  their  branches, 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      199 

they  must  meet  in  their  roots ;  for  the  branches 
are  aerial  roots  and  the  roots  are  underground 
branches. 

Come.  In  the  eagerness  of  my  letter  of 
yesterday  to  put  myself  not  in  the  right  but 
less,  if  possible,  in  the  wrong,  I  forgot  the 
very  matter  with  which  the  right  and  the 
wrong  originated. 

Will  you,  after  all,  send  the  ferns? 

The  whole  garden  waits  for  them;  a  white 
light  falls  on  the  vacant  spot;  a  white  light 
falls  on  your  books  in  my  library;  a  white 
light  falls  on  you., 

I  wait  for  you,  both  hands  outstretched. 
EDWARD  BLACKTHORNE. 


(Note  penciled  on  the  margin  of  the  letter 
by  Beverley  Sands  to  Ben  Doolittle:  "You 
will  see  that  I  am  back  where  the  whole  thing 
started;  I  have  to  begin  all  over  again  with 
the  ferns.  And  now  the  florists  will  be  after 
me  again.  I  feel  this  in  the  trembling  marrow 
of  my  bones,  and  my  bones  by  this  time  are  a 
wireless  station  on  this  subject.") 

BEVERLEY. 


200     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

JUDD  &  JUDD  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 


DEAR  SIR:  July  -? 

We  take  pleasure  in  enclosing  our  new 
catalogue  for  the  coming  autumn,  and  should 
be  pleased  to  receive  any  further  commissions 
for  the  European  trade. 

We    repeat    that   we   have    no    connection 
whatever  with  any  house  doing  business  in 
the  city  under  the  name  of  Botany. 
Respectfully  yours, 

JUDD  &  JUDD, 

Per  Q. 

PHILLIPS    &    FAULDS    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Louisville,  Kentucky, 

DEAR  SIR:  ^  **>  ^I2' 

Venturing  to  recall  ourselves  to  your  memory 
for  the  approaching  autumn  season,  in  view  of 
having  been  honoured  upon  a  previous  occa 
sion  with  your  flattering  patronage,  and 
reasoning  that  our  past  transactions  have 
been  mutually  satisfactory,  we  avail  ourselves 
of  this  opportunity  of  reviving  the  conjunc 
tion  heretofore  existing  between  us  as  most 
gratifying  and  thank  you  sincerely  for  past 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      201 

favours.  We  hope  to  continue  our  pleasant 
relations  and  desire  to  say  that  if  you  should 
contemplate  arranging  for  the  shipments  of 
plants  of  any  description,  we  could  afford  you 
surprised  satisfaction. 

Respectfully  yours, 

PHILLIPS  &  FAULDS. 

BURNS  &  BRUCE  TO  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

Dunkirk,  Tennessee, 
July  6,  1912. 
DEAR  SIR: 

We  are  prepared  to  supply  you  with  any 
thing  you  need.  Could  ship  ferns  to  any 
country  in  Europe,  having  done  so  for  the 
late  Noah  Chamberlin,  the  well-known  florist 
just  across  the  State  line,  who  was  a  customer 
of  ours. 

old  debts  of  Phillips  and   Faulds  not  yet 
paid,     had  to  drop  them  entirely. 
Very  truly  yours, 

BURNS  &  BRUCE. 

If  you  need  any  forest  trees,  we  could  sup 
ply  you  with  all  the  forest  trees  you  want, 
plenty  of  oaks,  etc.  plenty  of  elms,  plenty 
of  walnuts,  etc. 


202     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 


ANDY   PETERS    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

Seminole,  North  Carolina, 
July  fth,  igi2. 

DEAR  SIR: 

I  have  lately  enlarged  my  business  and  will 
be  able  to  handle  any  orders  you  may  give  me. 
The  orders  which  Miss  Clara  Louise  Chamber 
lain  said  you  were  to  send  have  not  yet  turned 
up.  I  write  to  you,  because  I  have  heard 
about  you  a  great  deal  through  Miss  Clara 
Louise,  since  her  return  from  her  visit  to  New 
York.  She  succeeded  in  getting  two  or  three 
donations  of  books  for  our  library,  and  they 
have  now  given  her  a  place  there.  I  was 
sorry  to  part  with  Miss  Clara  Louise,  but  I 
had  just  married,  and  after  the  first  few  weeks 
I  expected  my  wife  to  become  my  assistant. 
I  am  not  saying  anything  against  Miss  Clara 
Louise,  but  she  was  expensive  on  my  sweet 
violets,  especially  on  a  Sunday,  having  the 
run  of  the  flowers.  She  and  Alice  didn't  get 
along  very  well  together,  and  I  did  have  a 
bad  set-back  with  my  violets  while  she  was 
here. 

Seedlins  is  one  of  my  specialities.     I  make 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      203 

a  speciality  of  seedlins.  If  you  want  any 
seedlins,  will  you  call  on  me?  I  am  young 
and  just  married  and  anxious  to  please,  and 
I  wish  you  would  call  on  me  when  you  want 
anything  green.  Nothing  dried. 
Yours  respectfully, 

ANDY  PETERS. 


BENJAMIN    DOOLITTLE   TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

July  ?th,  IQI2. 


DEAR  BEVERLEY: 

It  makes  me  a  little  sad  to  write.  I  sup 
pose  you  saw  in  this  morning's  paper  the 
announcement  of  Tilly's  marriage  next  week 
to  Dr.  Marigold.  Nevertheless  —  congratula 
tions  !  You  have  lost  years  of  youth  and  hap 
piness  with  some  lovely  woman  on  account 
of  your  dalliance  with  her. 

Now  at  last,  you  will  let  her  alone,  and 
you  will  soon  find  —  Nature  will  quickly 
drive  you  to  find  —  the  one  you  deserve  to 
marry. 

It  looks  selfish  at  such  a  moment  to  set  my 
happiness  over  against  your  unhappiness, 


204     THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

but  I've  just  had  news,  that  at  last,  after 
lingering  so  long  and  a  little  mysteriously  in 
Louisville,  Polly  is  coming.  Polly  is  coming 
with  her  wedding  clothes.  We  long  ago  de 
cided  to  have  no  wedding.  All  that  we  have 
long  wished  is  to  marry  one  another.  Mr. 
Blackthorne  called  me  a  cocksure.  Well, 
Polly  is  another  cocksure.  We  shall  jog  along 
as  a  perfectly  satisfied  couple  of  cocksures  on 
the  cocksure  road.  (I  hope  to  God  Polly 
will  never  find  out  that  she  married  Sal 
Blivvens.) 

Dear  fellow,  truest  of  comrades  among 
men,  it  is  inevitable  that  I  reluctantly  leave 
you  somewhat  behind,  desert  you  a  little,  as 
the  friend  who  marries. 

One  awful  thought  freezes  me  to  my  chair 
this  hot  July  day.  You  have  never  said  a 
word  about  Miss  Clara  Louise  Chamberlain, 
since  the  day  of  my  hypothetical  charge  to  the 
jury.  Can  it  be  possible  that  you  followed 
her  up  ?  Did  you  feed  her  any  more  cheques  ? 
I  have  often  warned  you  against  Tilly,  as  in 
constant.  But,  my  dear  fellow,  remember 
there  is  a  worse  extreme  than  in  incon 
stancy — Clara  Louise  would  be  sealing  wax. 
You  would  merely  be  marrying  115  pounds  of 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      205 

sealing  wax.     Every  time  she  sputtered  in  con 
versation,  she'd  seal  you  the  tighter. 

Polly  is  coming  with  her  wedding  clothes. 

BEN. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BEN    DOOLITTLE 

July  8. 
DEAR  BEN: 

I  saw  the  announcement  in  the  morning 
paper  about  Tilly. 

It  wouldn't  be  worth  while  to  write  how  I 
feel. 

It  is  true  that  I  traced  Miss  Chamberlain, 
homeless  in  New  York.  And  I  saw  her.  As 
to  whether  I  have  been  feeding  cheques  to  her, 
that  is  solely  a  question  of  my  royalties. 
Royalties  are  human  gratitude;  why  should 
not  the  dews  of  gratitude  fall  on  one  so 
parched  ?  Besides,  I  don't  owe  you  anything, 
gentleman. 

Yes,  I  feel  you're  going — you're  passing  on 
to  Polly.  I  append  a  trifle  \vhich  explains 
itself,  and  am,  making  the  best  of  everything, 
the  same 

BEVERLEY  SANDS. 


206     THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

A  Meditation  in  Verse 

(Dedicated  to  Benjamin  Doolittle  as  showing  his 
favourite  weakness) 

How  can  I  mind  the  law's  delay, 
Or  what  a  jury  thinks  it  knows, 

Or  what  some  fool  of  a  judge  may  say? 
Polly  comes  with  the  wedding  clothes. 

Time,  who  cheated  me  so  long, 
Kept  me  waiting  mid  life's  snows, 

I  forgive  and  forget  your  wrong: 

Polly  comes  with  the  wedding  clothes. 

Winter's  lonely  sky  is  gone, 

July  blazes  with  the  rose, 
All  the  world  looks  smiling  on 

At  Polly  in  her  wedding  clothes. 

BENJAMIN    DOOLITTLE    TO    BEVERLEY    SANDS 

[A  hurried  letter  by  messenger] 

July  10,  IQI2. 

Polly  reached  New  York  two  days  ago.  I 
went  up  that  night.  She  had  gone  out — 
alone.  She  did  not  return  that  night.  I 
found  this  out  when  I  went  up  yesterday 
morning  and  asked  for  her.  She  has  not 


THE   EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY      207 

been  there  since  she  left.  They  know  nothing 
about  her.  I  have  telegraphed  Louisville. 
They  have  sent  me  no  word.  Come  down 
at  once. 

BEN. 


BEVERLEY  SANDS  TO  BEN  DOOLITTLE 

[Hurried  letter  by  messenger] 

July  10,  igi2. 
DEAR  BEN:- 

Is  anything  wrong  about  Polly? 

I  met  her  on  the  street  yesterday.  She 
tried  to  pass  without  speaking.  I  called  to 
her  but  she  walked  on.  I  called  again  and 
she  turned,  hesitatingly,  then  came  back  very 
slowly  to  meet  me  half-way.  You  know  how 
composed  her  manner  always  is.  But  she 
could  not  control  her  emotion :  she  was  deeply, 
visibly  troubled.  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
while  I  thought  of  the  mystery  of  her  trouble, 
I  could  but  notice  a  trifle,  as  at  such  moments 
one  often  does:  she  was  beautifully  dressed:  a 
new  charm,  a  youthful  freshness,  was  all  over 
her  as  for  some  impending  ceremony.  We 
have  always  thought  of  Polly  as  one  of  the 
women  who  are  above  dress.  Such  disregard 


208     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

was  in  a  way  a  verification  of  her  character, 
the  adornment  of  her  sincerity.  Now  she  was 
beautifully  dressed. 

"But  what  is  the  meaning  of  all  this?"  I 
asked,  frankly  mystified.  ^ 

Something  in  her  manner  checked  the 
question,  forced  back  my  words. 

"You  will  hear,"  she  said,  with  quivering 
lips.  She  looked  me  searchingly  all  over 
the  face  as  for  the  sake  of  dear  old  times 
now  ended.  Then  she  turned  off  abruptly. 
I  watched  her  in  sheer  amazement  till  she 
disappeared. 

I  have  been  waiting  to  hear  from  you,  but 
cannot  wait  any  longer.  What  does  it  mean? 
Why  don't  you  tell  me? 

BEVERLEY. 


BEVERLEY    SANDS   TO    BENJAMIN   DOOLITTLE 

July  II. 

I  have  with  incredible  eyes  this  instant  read 
this  cutting  from  the  morning  paper: 

Miss   Polly  Boles  married  yesterday  at  the 
City  Hall  in  Jersey  City  to  Dr.  Claude  Mullen. 

She  must  have  been  on  her  way  when  I  saw 
her. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY     209 

I  have  read  the  announcement  without  be 
ing  able  to  believe  it — with  some  kind  of  death 
in  life  at  my  heart. 

Oh,  Ben,  Ben,  Ben!  So  betrayed!  I  am 
coming  at  once. 

BEVERLEY. 

DIARY  OF  BEVERLEY  SANDS 

July  18. 

The  ferns  have  had  their  ironic  way  with 
us  and  have  wrought  out  their  bitter  comedy 
to  its  end.  The  little  group  of  us  who  were 
the  unsuspecting  players  are  henceforth  scat 
tered,  to  come  together  in  the  human  play 
house  not  again.  The  stage  is  empty,  the 
curtain  waits  to  descend,  and  I,  who  inno 
cently  brought  the  drama  on,  am  left  the 
solitary  figure  to  speak  the  epilogue  ere  I,  too, 
depart  to  go  my  separate  road. 

This  is  Tilly's  wedding  day.  How  beautiful 
the  morning  is  for  her!  The  whole  sky  is  one 
exquisite  blue — no  sign  of  any  storm-plan  far 
or  near.  The  July  air  blows  as  cool  as  early 
May.  I  sit  at  my  window  writing  and  it 
flows  over  me  in  soft  waves,  the  fragrances 
of  the  green  park  below  my  window  enter 


210     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

my  room  and  encircle  me  like  living  human 
tendernesses.  At  this  moment,  I  suppose, 
Tilly  is  dressing  for  her  wedding,  and  I — 
God  knows  why — am  thinking  of  old-time 
Kentucky  gardens  in  one  of  which  she  played 
as  a  child.  Tilly,  a  little  girl  romping  in  her 
mother's  garden — Tilly  before  she  was  old 
enough  to  know  anything  of  the  world — any 
thing  of  love — now,  as  she  dresses  for  her 
wedding — I  cannot  shut  out  that  vision  of 
early  purity. 

Yesterday  a  note  came  from  her.  I  had 
had  no  word  since  the  day  I  openly  ridiculed 
the  man  she  is  to  marry.  But  yesterday  she 
sent  me  this  message: 

"Come  to-night  and  say  good-bye." 
She  was  not  in  her  rooms  to  greet  me.  I 
waited.  Moments  passed,  long  moments  of 
intense  expectancy.  She  did  not  enter.  I 
fixed  my  eyes  on  her  door.  Once  I  saw  it 
pushed  open  a  little  way,  then  closed.  Again 
it  was  opened  and  again  it  was  held  as  though 
for  lack  of  will  or  through  quickly  changing 
impulses.  Then  it  was  opened  and  she  en 
tered  and  came  toward  me,  not  looking  at 
me,  but  with  her  face  turned  aside.  She 
advanced  a  few  paces  and  with  some 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     211 

swift,  imperious  rebellion,  she  turned  and 
passed  out  of  the  room  and  then  came  quickly 
back.  She  had  caught  up  her  bridal  veil. 
She  held  the  wreath  in  her  hand  and  as  she 
approached  me,  I  know  not  with  what  sudden 
emotion  she  threw  a  corner  of  the  veil  over 
her  head  and  face  and  shoulders.  And  she 
stood  before  me  with  I  know  not  what  strug 
gle  tearing  her  heart.  Almost  in  a  whisper 
she  said: 

"  Lift  my  veil." 

I  lifted  her  veil  and  laid  it  back  over  her 
forehead.  She  closed  her  eyes  as  tears  welled 
out  of  them. 

"Kiss  me,"  she  said. 

I  would  have  taken  her  in  my  arms  as  mine 
at  that  moment  for  all  time,  but  she  stepped 
back  and  turned  away,  fading  from  me 
rather  than  walking,  with  her  veil  pressed 
like  a  handkerchief  to  her  eyes.  The  door 
closed  on  her. 

I  waited.    She  did  not  come  again. 

Now  she  is  dressing  for  the  marriage  cere 
mony.  A  friend  gives  her  a  house  wredding. 
The  company  of  guests  will  be  restricted, 
everything  will  be  exquisite,  there  will  be 
youth  and  beauty  and  distinction.  There 


212     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

will  be  no  love.  She  marries  as  one  who  steps 
through  a  beautiful  arch  further  along  one's 
path. 

Whither  that  path  leads,  I  do  not  know; 
from  what  may  lie  at  the  end  of  it  I  turn  away 
and  shudder. 

My  thought  of  Tilly  on  her  wedding  morn 
ing  is  of  one  exiled  from  happiness  because 
nature  withheld  from  her  the  one  thing  needed 
to  make  her  all  but  perfect:  that  needful  thing 
was  just  a  little  more  constancy.  It  is  her 
doom,  forever  to  stretch  out  her  hand  toward  a 
brimming  goblet,  but  ere  she  can  bring  it  to 
her  lips  it  drops  from  her  hand.  Forever  her 
hand  stretched  out  toward  joy  and  forever 
joy  shattered  at  her  feet. 

American  scientists  have  lately  discovered 
or  seem  about  to  discover,  some  new  fact  in 
Nature — the  butterfly  migrates.  What  we 
have  thought  to  be  the  bright-winged  inhab 
itant  of  a  single  summer  in  a  single  zone  fol 
lows  summer's  retreating  wave  and  so  dwells 
in  a  summer  that  is  perpetual.  If  Tilly  is  the 
psyche  of  life's  fields,  then  she  seeks  perpetual 
summer  as  the  law  of  her  own  being.  All  our 
lives  move  along  old,  old  paths.  There  is  no 
new  path  for  any  of  us.  If  Tilly's  fate  is  the 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY      213 

butterfly  path,  who  can  judge  her  harshly? 
Not  I. 

They  sail  away  at  once  on  their  wedding 
journey.  He  has  wealth  and  social  influence 
of  the  fashionable  sort  which  overflows  into 
the  social  mirrors  of  metropolitan  journalism: 
the  papers  found  space  for  their  plans  of 
travel:  England  and  Scotland,  France  and 
Switzerland,  Austria  and  Germany,  Bohemia 
and  Poland,  Russia,  Italy  and  Sicily — home. 
The  great  world-path  of  the  human  butterfly, 
seeking  summer  with  insatiate  quest. 

Home  to  his  practice  with  that  still  flutter 
ing  psyche!  And  then  the  path — the  domestic 
path — stretching  straight  onward  across  the 
fields  of  life — what  of  his  psyche  then  ?  Will  she 
fold  her  wings  on  a  bed-post — year  after  year 
slowly  opening  and  unfolding  those  brilliant 
wings  amid  the  cob-webs  of  the  same  bed 
post?  .  .  . 

I  cannot  write  of  human  life  unless  I  can 
forgive  life.  How  forgive  unless  I  can  under 
stand  ?  I  have  wrought  with  all  that  is  within 
me  to  understand  Polly — her  treachery  up  to 
the  last  moment,  her  betrayal  of  Ben's  devo 
tion.  What  I  have  made  out  dimly,  darkly, 
doubtfully,  is  this:  Her  whole  character  seems 


2i4     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

built  upon  one  trait,  one  virtue — loyalty. 
She  was  disloyal  to  Ben  because  she  had  come 
to  believe  that  he  was  disloyal  to  her  sover 
eign  excellence.  There  were  things  in  his  life 
which  he  persistently  refused  to  tell;  perhaps 
every  day  there  were  mere  trifles  which  he  did 
not  share  with  her — why  should  he?  On  a 
certain  memorable  morning  she  discovered 
that  for  years  he  had  been  keeping  from  her 
some  affairs  of  mine:  that  was  his  loyalty  to 
me;  she  thought  it  was  his  disloyalty  to  her. 

I  cannot  well  picture  Polly  as  a  lute,  but  I 
think  that  was  the  rift  in  the  lute.  Still  a 
man  must  not  surrender  himself  wholly  into 
the  keeping  of  the  woman  he  loves;  let  him, 
and  he  becomes  anything  in  her  life  but  a 
man. 

Meantime  Polly  found  near  by  another 
suitor  who  offered  her  all  he  was — what 
little  there  was  of  him — one  of  those  man- 
climbers  who  must  run  over  the  sheltering 
wall  of  some  woman.  Thus  there  was  gratified 
in  Polly  her  one  passion  for  marrying — that 
she  should  possess  a  pet.  Now  she  possesses 
one,  owns  him,  can  turn  him  round  and 
round,  can  turn  him  inside  out,  can  see  all 
there  is  of  him  as  she  sees  her  pocket-handker- 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     215 

chief,  her  breast-pin,  her  coffee  cup,  or  any 
little  familiar  piece  of  property  which  she  can 
become  more  and  more  attached  to  as  the 
years  go  by  for  the  reason  that  it  will  never 
surprise  her,  never  puzzle  her,  never  change 
except  by  wearing  out. 

This  will  be  the  end  of  the  friendship  be 
tween  Drs.  Marigold  and  Mullen:  their  wives 
will  see  to  that.  So  much  the  better:  scattered 
impostors  do  least  harm.  , 

I  have  struggled  to  understand  the  mystery 
of  her  choice  as  to  how  she  should  be  married. 
Surely  marriage,  in  the  existence  of  any  one, 
is  the  hour  when  romance  buds  on  the  most 
prosaic  stalk.  It  budded  for  Polly  and  she 
eloped !  It  was  a  short  troubled  flight  of  her 
heavy  mind  without  the  wings  of  imagination. 
She  got  as  far  as  the  nearest  City  Hall.  In 
stead  of  a  minister  she  chose  to  be  married 
by  a  Justice  of  the  Peace:  Ben  had  been  un 
just,  she  would  be  married  by  the  figure  of 
Justice  as  a  penal  ceremony  executed  over 
Ben:  she  mailed  him  a  paper  and  left  him  to 
understand  that  she  had  fled  from  him  to 
Justice  and  Peace!  Polly's  poetry! 

A  line  in  an  evening  paper  lets  me  know 
that  she  and  the  Doctor  have  gone  for  their 


216     THE  EMBLEMS  OF   FIDELITY 

honeymoon  to  Ocean  Grove.  When  Polly- 
first  came  North  to  live  and  the  first  summer 
came  round  she  decided  to  spend  it  at  Ocean 
Grove,  with  the  idea,  I  think,  that  she  would 
get  a  grove  and  an  ocean  with  one  railway 
ticket,  without  having  to  change;  she  could 
settle  in  a  grove  with  an  ocean  and  in  an 
ocean  with  a  grove.  What  her  disappointment 
was  I  do  not  know,  but  every  summer  she  has 
gone  back  to  Ocean  Grove — the  Franklin 
Flats  by  the  sea.  .  .  . 

Yesterday  I  said  good-bye  to  Ben.  I  had 
spent  part  of  every  evening  with  him  since 
Polly's  marriage — silent,  empty  evenings — a 
quiet,  stunned  man.  Confidence  in  himself 
blasted  out  of  him,  confidence  in  human 
nature,  in  the  world.  With  no  imagination 
in  him  to  deal  with  the  reasons  of  Polly's  de 
sertion — just  a  passive  acceptance  of  it  as  a 
wall  accepts  a  hole  in  it  made  by  a  cannon  ball. 

Her  name  was  never  called.  A  stunned,  si 
lent  man.  Clear,  joyous  steady  light  in  his  eyes 
gone — an  uncertain  look  in  them.  Strangest 
of  all,  a  reserve  in  his  voice,  hesitation.  And 
courtesy  for  bluff  warm  confidence — courtesy 
as  of  one  who  stumblingly  reflects  that  he 
must  begin  to  be  careful  with  everybody. 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     217 

His  active  nature  meantime  kept  on.  Life 
swept  him  forward — nature  did — whether  he 
would  or  not.  I  went  down  late  one  even 
ing.  Evidently  he  had  been  working  in  his 
room  all  day;  the  things  Polly  must  have 
sent  him  during  all  those  years  were  gone. 
He  had  on  new  slippers,  a  fresh  robe,  taking 
the  place  of  the  slippers  and  the  robe  she 
had  made  for  him.  Often  I  have  seen  him 
tuck  the  robe  in  about  his  neck  as  a  man 
might  reach  for  the  arms  of  a  woman  to 
draw  them  about  his  throat  as  she  leans  over 
him  from  behind. 

During  our  talk  that  evening  he  began 
strangely  to  speak  of  things  that  had  taken 
place  years  before  in  Kentucky,  in  his  youth, 
on  the  farm;  did  I  remember  this  in  Ken 
tucky,  could  I  recall  that?  His  mind  had 
gone  back  to  old  certainties.  It  was  like  his 
walking  away  from  present  ruins  toward 
things  still  unharmed — never  to  be  harmed. 

Early  next  morning  he  surprised  me  by 
coming  up,  dressed  for  travel,  holding  a  grip. 

"I  am  going  to  Kentucky,"  he  said. 

I  went  to  the  train  with  him.  His  reserve 
deepened  on  the  way;  if  he  had  plans,  he  did 
not  share  them  with  me. 


2i 8     THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY 

What  I  make  out  of  it  is  that  he  will  come 
back  married.  No  engagement  this  time,  no 
waiting.  Swift  marriage  for  what  marriage 
will  sadly  bring  him.  I  think  she  will  be  young 
— this  time.  But  she  will  be,  as  nearly  as  pos 
sible,  like  Polly.  Any  other  kind  of  woman 
now  would  leave  him  a  desolate,  empty-heart 
ed  man  for  life.  He  thinks  he  will  be  getting 
some  one  to  take  Polly's  place.  In  reality  it 
will  be  his  second  attempt  to  marry  Polly. 

I  am  bidding  farewell  the  little  group  of  us. 
Some  one  else  will  have  to  write  of  me.  How 
can  I  write  of  myself?  This  I  will  say:  that 
I  think  that  I  am  a  sheep  whose  fate  it  is  to 
leave  a  little  of  his  wool  on  every  bramble. 

I  sail  next  week  for  England  to  make  my 
visit  to  Mr.  Blackthorne — at  last.  Another 
letter  has  come  from  him.  He  has  thrown 
himself  into  the  generous  work  of  seeing  that 
my  visit  to  him  shall  make  me  known.  He 
tells  me  there  will  be  a  house  party,  a  week 
end;  some  of  the  great  critics  will  be  there, 
some  writers.  "You  must  be  found  out  in 
England  widely  and  at  once,"  he  writes. 

My  heart  swells  as  one  who  feels  himself 
climbing  toward  a  height.  There  is  kindled 
in  me  that  strangest  of  all  the  flames  that  burn 


THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY     219 

in  the  human  heart,  the  shining  thought  that 
my  life  is  destined  to  be  more  than  mine,  that 
my  work  will  make  its  way  into  other  minds 
and  mingle  with  the  better,  happier  impulses 
of  other  lives. 

The  ironic  ferns  have  had  their  way  with 
us.  But  after  all  has  it  not  been  for  the  best? 
Have  they  not  even  in  their  irony  been  the 
emblems  of  fidelity? 

They  have  found  us  out,  they  have  played 
upon  our  weaknesses,  they  have  exaggerated 
our  virtues  until  these  became  vices,  they  have 
separated  us  and  set  us  going  our  diverging 
ways. 

But  while  we  human  beings  are  moving 
in  every  direction  over  the  earth,  the  earth 
without  our  being  conscious  of  it  is  carrying 
us  in  one  same  direction.  So  as  we  follow  the 
different  pathways  of  our  lives  which  appear 
to  lead  toward  unfaithfulness  to  one  another, 
may  it  not  be  true  that  to  the  Power  which 
sets  us  all  in  motion  and  drives  us  whither  it 
will  all  our  lives  are  the  Emblems  of  Fidelity? 


THE  END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


YB  72705 


M109759 


A 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


